


Winter

by Jadenite



Category: Longmire (TV), Walt Longmire Mysteries - Craig Johnson
Genre: Aftermath, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-22
Updated: 2020-08-07
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:00:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 24
Words: 149,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21524866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadenite/pseuds/Jadenite
Summary: Walter Longmire falls back into old, familiar, habits, namely an old friend's bed and flees the scene before the past can be squared away. Walter’s chance to fix things might be stolen when a stranger rolls into town, bringing his troubles within him as he sets to take advantage of the sleepy little town. His sights are set on the Cheyenne businessman who runs the Red Pony, Henry Standing Bear, and his intentions aredark.
Relationships: (Past) Martha Longmire/Walt Longmire/Henry Standing Bear, Walt Longmire/Henry Standing Bear
Comments: 82
Kudos: 60





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Snow crunched below his bare feet and the coyotes hunted their yellow eyes gleaming like lanterns in the dark. He imagined the winter gale tearing his skin and gusts of wind snapping through the Tamaracks so strongly it forced the boughs to bend and bend and _bend_ until their branches cracked, splitting them into halves. He was as splintered at those broken trees, branches tore by the wind, outer skin cut down to nothing.

_Absaroka, Wyoming_

_The Red Pony Bar & Grill _

He hated winter. It wasn’t as though he really enjoyed spring, summer or fall all that much either but for him it was always the worst. It looked as though everything was blanketed in clean, white, layers. A fucking pretense to hide the shit-stains and dark corners beneath a veneer of cleanliness which allowed blue-collar shoppers to clog up the streets. Off they went, enjoying their cheery pre-Christmas music while orphans went without and addict-mothers wrapped lollipops because it was all they had. But here these blue-collar shoppers were, throwing away good money on people they only saw once a year. What a joke. 

_Merry fucking Christmas, suckers._ Shoppers going about their business gave him a give berth. He trotted down the street hands tucked into his black _Hollister_ sweater. He was always looking for something to capture his attention. He grinned, teeth flashing in a shark's predatory smile when something popped up on his radar. A group of teenage girls smiling at him as they walked past. They bunched together like sheep. Afraid to wander too far from the streetlight but still daring enough to tempt the wolf in the dark with their cherry lip-stick smiles. Stupid little things, to young to know better, no one wiser around to mind them. 

A girl with electric blue eyes and matching hair interrupted his eye-flirting with the mousy-haired brunette who lingered at the outskirts of the gang. She gave him the finger as she grabbed her friends hand, tugging her along. Acting leader of the pack she bustled them away with the pretext of a movie. 

She kept her eye on him when they passed, elbows brushing in close quarters of the sidewalk. 

“Come on, the movie is starting soon,” she said, linking arms with the brunette.

_Ah, little lamb didn't see the wolf, did she?_ He licked his lips, stopping in his tracks to smile in her direction. Mousy, plain-faced types appreciated open regard. It was a skill teenage boys hadn’t yet mastered. This brunette was no exception, casting her doe-eyes right back at him in a manner he read as promising. 

“Hey there, pretty girl,” he called out. “I bet you're not the type to talk to strangers on the street but I love that necklace.”

Her hand clasped the delicate filigree artwork dangling from a chain around her neck that rested atop her modest assets as her cheeks turned pink. She resisted Blue Eyes, pausing mid-step. Her eyes traced up and down him with avid interest. 

He smiled wider. 

“I’m new in town, visiting a friend, pretty girl. My name’s Hector.” 

“Can’t it wait, Ash?” a different, black haired girl asked. She too was flicking her eyes at him, clearly unperturbed that she was making eyes at the same man as her friend. 

He patiently bid for time, pulling his hands from his pockets -- _less threatening_ \-- as he slouched against a building making no effort to hide his interest in their street side conversation. Brunette, blond, black, he wasn’t choosey tonight. He’d started the night in the look out for someone dark-haired and big-breasted, but he was new. He didn’t know all the ins and out of this sleepy little town.

He waited to see what the girls would do. 

“No, make us late -- again -- and I’ll tell Justin you made out with _Brian Lavell_ in the janitor's closet. You know, when you two _‘took a break,’_ Marcy.”

Marcy slumped, wilting at the reminder of her boyfriend. “You’re right Ash.”

Ash snorted, nudging her more adventurous, and busty friend along in front of her. No girl left behind, here. Apparently. 

“Of course I am.” 

He didn’t know what it was but some women _knew_ what he really wanted. Maybe there was something to that _woman's intuition_ they harped on about. All that feelings and shit talk because as soon as Blue Eyes caught him looking, every muscle in her small, pixie frame had become taunt, heavily masquerade eyes narrowing in his direction as though she could see into his head. Pre-cognitive _fight or flight_ reflexes instinctively kicked into gear and she wasn’t even fully aware of it. The girls fell into step moaning and bitching amongst one another even as they smiled. A giggling crowd of hormonal, poor impulse control accidents waiting to happen. It would have been easy pickings. If not for that one girl who looked at him and saw something she didn’t like he could have separated one from the crowd. Taken her home for the night. He _wanted_ , his blood was aching for it. 

He sighed, and moved on, even jungle cats struck out sometimes. He could feel it; an itch under his skin that needed to be scratched. Men were just animals, really, underneath it all. Chasing wants, needs, _desires_ . Women were not so different. No matter what they told themselves, chasing security, that feeling of being _wanted_ , sex. Sometimes their wants aligned and it was called _dating_ . Other times it didn’t, and for those occasions he had an ace up his sleeve, being an educated, Midwestern boy. Police officers could be very helpful, once they had been plied with his All-American charm. 

_‘But she said yes, earlier tonight, officer.’_

His face scrunched in what they would believe to be genuine confusion as he built a rapport that could be shared with most men who struck out at the bars night after night. 

_‘Women, who knows what goes on in their heads.’_

_‘Are you sure it wasn’t a misunderstanding’_ the cops would ask, and that would be it. Within a few days the accusation was summarily withdrawn.

Case closed.

_‘_ _Buyers regret,’_ the boys would say, clap him on the back and let him off the hook. 

_‘You're a free man, stay out of trouble, kid’_ as they clapped him on the back. 

Misunderstandings happened a lot, apparently. 

Hector strolled along, snorting in amusement as the group of teenagers disappeared from view. He could still hear them, giggling uproariously, not one of them having a single fucking clue. 

They’d brushed shoulders with a monster on the street and went on to watch their movie. They finish the night safely tucked in their beds under their parents' roofs. The brunette and black-haired girl would spend the night resenting Blue Eyes, wondering about romantic _what-could-have-been_. But they fell in line when their designated Alpha female barked, slipping out of his clutches and not even knowing. His blood burned for the friction of a body against his dick, for soft skin and loud cries. He watched them go, his gaze lingering on the quiet one. 

He thought he could have made her scream.

_Too bad, she looked easy._

He sighed, better luck next time. 

Hector flicked his _Marlboro_ , dispassionately watching as that bright whiteness he loathed began to blacken with ash and arsenic. He looked at white clumps of snow and thought of the thin line of coke his mother used to snort before she OD’d closing that chapter in his life. _Foster homes were shit. At least mom was consistent about her shittiness._ He blew his last puff into the chilled air, watching as the cigarette seeped into the ground, small embers at the butt dying, where it would become toxic waste for the next decade as it slowly decomposed. 

A man with a brown Stetson and a heavy tan coat snapped it up from the ground dropping it in a nearby trash can as he proceeded to enter the establishment behind him. The red LED sign declared it the _Red Pony_. Who the fuck named a good bar something like that, that’s what he wanted to know. 

“Hey, dude, who the hell named this place?” he asked, shooting the question out fast before the hard-faced cowboy disappeared inside.

The man with the brown Stetson appeared to deliberate his question. Studied him for a long, slow moment, widening his stance as though he had come across a rattler in the rocks and not a stranger at the curb of a small town bar and grill. It just wasn’t his night, was it? Or maybe it was this town. Sticking around might not be the best idea. He’d already struck out once for the night. Small towns were slimmer pickings, fewer women, fewer people.

“Well, now. That would be the owner of the establishment, Henry Standing Bear.”

Hector scrunched up his nose in distaste. He couldn’t help his reaction and he shouldn't have been surprised with the _Cheyenne Reservation_ so close. Of course, the shitty name made sense now. _‘Red Pony’_ was probably a thick-headed attempt at punning. _‘Red_ ’ for the application of the term _‘redskins’_ that was levied against Indians back in bygone days that no one gave two fucks about these days. _Kind of clever_ , he grudgingly admitted, _reclaiming the terminology_. Or maybe not, maybe the man liked the color red and had a thing for ponies. Who the fuck knew. 

“Huh,” he said. 

He might as well have said ‘ _fuck him and his pony, too_.’ 

Hadn’t meant to give so much away, really. But the man in front of him was no _slow on the uptake_ cowpoke, he caught on fast this big man. His eyes narrowed a little, giving him a rangy, squinty-eyed look. Maybe he was one of those Indian lover types, all for embracing different cultures and shit. Hector resisted the urge to shrug, to explain how his two-timing father left his addict mother to chase after a little, dark-skinned slip of a thing who called herself Helen Running Deer. It was a free country. He could hate whoever the hell he wanted, and he didn’t feel like chatting with this big, watchful fellow. He was to fucking much, that was for damn sure. Besides, he didn’t owe the cowboy squat. What was he going to do? Arrest him. 

Another cigarette halfway to his mouth he paused. The dim street lights glinted on the shiny tin-star pinned to the man's chest. Well, fuck. It really wasn’t his night, was it? 

This quiet, watchful man was the local sheriff. He pointed to the vividly red sign nailed to the left of the bar's door. It read: _no loitering violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law._

His intent couldn’t have been clearer if he'd pulled out his Colt M911A1 from its side holster and said _‘I don’t want to see you hanging around my town.’_

A thrill of excitement went down his spine. He felt like he’d stepped into one of those old-timey movies. This sheriff definitely fit the bill. Looking like the strong, silent hero type, complete with the square jaw. The sort with paper-cut-out villains who were always dialoguing their plans to the hero. 

He left his cigarette unlit, stuffing it in his pocket. 

The man nodded to the black stain, an ugly blemish against the white snow. “Those things will kill you, you know.”

He grunted. “Everyone has to leave this world, sooner or later.” 

“I take it you're not from around here, mister?” the man asked, fishing for a name he wasn’t going to get. His eyes drilling into him like he was taking a mental snapshot, to remember for later. 

He grinned, lips pulled back in a cracking veneer of civility. “You’re right, I’m not from around here. Maybe I’ll see you around, sheriff.” 

Tipping his baseball cap in a mocking salute he stalked on down the road. He would find another street corner to darken as he watched the sheep shuffle on by. Maybe he’d even pluck one from the herd. It was the one truly wonderful thing about pre-Christmas madness and the white fucking snow freezing up the roads. People could just vanish into that beautiful, white blanket. No one would notice a disappearance until the holiday hubbub died down and the spring thaw swept through the county. Assuming they had anyone to notice at all. 

It worked to his advantage and people like him who were waiting in the wings, the darkened corners no one wanted to see. Everyone was so busy with their reality shows and iPhones. Boxed-in by their own little innocuous lives, who had time to notice the stranger walking down the street, or the man lingering under the streetlamp? Having picked out a new spot he lit up a cigarette blowing a plume of smoke into the air. 

His eyes, though, kept returning to the _Red Pony_. 

A man hurrying past his corner knocked into him sending his cigarette flying, ruined by the wet snow. 

He snarled, grabbing at the idiot's jacket. “Watch it!” 

The man peered at him, a smarmy grin spreading across his face. “Trig?”

He let the idiot go, shoving him back a few paces. There was only one man who called him that these days. A nickname picked up in high school for his short fuse. One little pencil stabbing and they never let a guy forget it. 

“Well, Mitch, how they hell are you?” he asked. An idea had begun taking shape while he stared at the red LED sign across the way. 

If he recalled correctly Mitch had a fetish for those dark-eyed half-breeds who lived on the Reservations. 

If he played this right he might get what he wanted. 

“It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” Mitch said but he kept licking his lips and darting looks over towards the Indian-owned bar. 

A dimple appeared in his left cheek when he smiled. From the way Mitch was bouncing his leg and looking over at the bar he knew he’d been headed for the _Red Pony._

“Yeah, what’s got you in such an all-fired rush?” he asked, testing the waters. He let his mouth curl in a small grin as he waited to see if Mitch was up to his old habits. 

Mitch shrugged his square jaw set in determination, his hazel eyes all lit up and twitchty with anticipation. “The _Red Pony_ isn’t five star or nothing, but the burgers are hot and the beer is cold.” 

“And…” 

“And --” Mitch paused, swallowing, his Adam’s apple bobbing. “The barkeep is fucking pretty.” 

Hector snorted, he had been right about Mitch. Two strikes and a hit. “Heh, Mitch, you old dog!” 

He wondered if Mitch was willing to share. If he could persuade Mitch to share on account of them being such good pals and all. He hadn’t had a warm body under him in a while and he’s starting to get that craving. 

Mitch being well, Mitch, it’s probably not some innocent, doe-eyed girl, either. Not that it mattered to him, the fun was in the fucking, the act of having a warm body thrashing under the palms of his hand. Warm, wet heat, as he made them come, maybe cry, too. 

Mitch held up his hand, shaking his head in denial. Something of his thoughts must have shown on his face. 

Mitch knew him, maybe a little too well. 

“Whoah, it’s not like that, man.”

He spat in the dirt. “Aww, c’mon, why the hell not?”

Mitch visibly drooped, the fool, like a lovesick bitch. Trig suppressed the urge to sneer. “He wouldn’t look twice my way.”

“Oh-oh, I get you!” he said with false sympathy. “I suppose I’m not too surprised -- always figured you were bent! There’s ways around that particular obstacle, you know. Slip a few blues in a fella’s drink...you get to scratch an itch, they have a black-out drunk night...win-win by some standards.”

Mitch shrugged, feigning nonchalance, but the man was still standing there talking with him. He was the fish baited by the sparkle of tinsel on the fishing hook. That burgeoning gleam of hope on his pretty-boy face told him what he needed to know. Mitch would be his. _Hook. Line. Sinker._

“I don’t know, Trig,” Mitch said, biting his lip.

“Well, you sleep on it, then. We can get you laid in the meantime,” Trig said, procuring a fifty from his pocket. He waved it under Mitch’s nose like an enticing side of beef.

Trig watched from the corner of his eye as the locals filed out of the establishment. The drunks getting into cabs that they would have been too sloshed to call for themselves. He made a note of it when one of the workers exited, his back to the street as he hauled a bin outside. 

Mitch’s pupils were dilated and his breathing switched, becoming short and faint. Trig smirked. So this was the piece of tail Mitch was drooling over, then. Trig appraised the back of him, or what he could see anyhow in the dim street light. He whistled under his breath. 

_Slim, fit, and a nice ass._ Mitch could have done worse. 

The Indian didn’t even look their way. Maybe he hadn’t heard. It didn’t matter any. He’d be noticing them soon enough. Trig slung his arm around Mitch’s shoulder leading him away from the bar, but the shorter man kept flicking his eyes over Trig’s shoulder. 

_He had it bad,_ Trig chuckled. His shaggy blonde hair flopped into his face and he grumbled, tying it back with a band. It was a damn nuisance at the best of times, but the chicks seemed to dig it. Trig remembered that they had made a hell of a duo back in their high-school days, between his own Anglican good looks and choir-boy Mitch their beds had never been cold for want of company. 

“So, tell me Mitch, does this town have any hookers or has that big, cowboy sheriff I just met rounded all of them up too?” 

Mitch threw his head back and laughed. “You met Sheriff Longmire, then? He’s the law around here, him and his two three deputies. Branch is off at a training seminar, leaving just Ferg and that pretty blond...um, Vic? Yeah, Vic.”

Trig hummed, taking in the information. “A woman deputy? My, my isn’t that sheriff progressive. Wouldn’t have thought it to look at ‘em, looks like something that stepped out of the Old West.”

“So. Hookers. I might know a place,” Mitch said, gesturing toward Trig with a ‘follow me’ wave before sticking his hands in his pockets as he ambled ahead. Trig lagged behind, flicking his cigarette into the snow, casting one last glance at the bar just in time to watch the sheriff get in his beat-up truck and drive off. 

“Pew-pew,” Trig said, blowing fake gunsmoke from his fingertips. He didn’t imagine he'd cross paths with the sheriff again, not if his plan worked. It would be the cozy company of three out in the mountains: him, Mitch’s, and his _pretty_ fucking Indian. 

  
  


_Absaroka, Wyoming_

_Kidnapping: Week Three_

  
  


It was difficult to breathe with his face pressed into the mattress, but he tried anyway. The fight within him had dwindled down to a flickering spark. His body was too tired to keep it up for long and his head told him submission would hurt less. He conceded the point as he laid on the mattress. His emotions locked down. Shipped to some distant land over the horizon, leaving him numb as he stared at the wall. Its impression burned into his retinas even when his eyes closed. His emotions were buried at the bottom of a deep ocean, or at the ice-crusted peaks of a mountain, he imagined. It did not matter much where, so long as they remained absent. He could do nothing but lie still and take it, and was far too tired tonight to bear the shame. He did not want it, but words had long since proven futile, and what he wanted matter even less. 

There were hand's on his body. Lips pressed into the vulnerable base of his neck, a heavy weight pinned him down, which caused the mattress to dip. Friction built low in his belly as his body hummed in response to the outside stimulus that he had no control over. He had become the passive observer of his own body’s functions. He felt it when the man moved inside him. He wished he could not feel a thing. Pleasure flashes sparked through him and his body responded to a foreign object slamming into _that_ spot inside him, again and again until he was panting like an animal in heat, his feet sliding for purchase on the sheets. He felt everything keenly. 

  
  


The painful stretch of a rough fuck. 

A dick that was not attached to Walter Longmire rocking into his ass. 

Blunt teeth nipped hard enough to break the top layer of skin, startling a gasp through his closed lips. 

_Human teeth._ He reminded himself, for all they behaved like beasts. Coyotes would have been kind enough to push him into death's arms. Instead they left him to linger between worlds; spirit laid bare, and his body stripped naked for their lust. Coyotes knew only how to kill the body; a man was a far more insidious animal that could kill the spirit in inches. It was this that _they_ did; his spirit had been rendered in two. He was now half of himself, half a _man_ , as he laid on the mattress his mind millions of miles away. He took deep breaths and with each one became more hollowed out and cold, even with the sweaty heat of a man pinning him down. He shivered from the ice threading through his veins, struggling to remind himself that doing nothing meant survival. If he did not fight he would not be hit, would not bleed unnecessarily. Fighting would gain him nothing nor would it salve his pride. _Be still_ , he reminded himself, _and it will be over._

Beyond the relative warmth of the RV, coyotes yapped and yowled among themselves under the phosphorescent light of a Hunter's moon. The brightness of it seeped into the room through the small window to his left, dividing the space with looming shadows and empty spaces that were pits of blackness. A lone wolf howled in the distance and the coyotes fell silent; wild things knew when to be still and quiet, too. The man on the mattress did not think it would survive to see the encroachment of summer. The wilds were oftentimes an unforgiving place to solitary predators such as them. Kipling understood a wolf's strength did not come from itself alone; it borrowed from its pack brothers. Come winter, the lone wolf died. 

His reality began to fracture, his mind wandering strange paths as he remained locked out of his own self. He did not want to go back. There he was consumed by hot weight, and the _creak-creak_ of the springs on the mattress drowned out by pleasure-grunts and his own bitten-back cries. He was outside, where everything was so white it hurt his eyes to look upon. Snow crunched below his bare feet and the coyotes hunted their yellow eyes gleaming like lanterns in the dark. He imagined the winter gale tearing his skin and gusts of wind snapping through the Tamaracks so strongly it forced the boughs to bend and bend and _bend_ until their branches cracked, splitting them into halves. He was as splintered at those broken trees, branches tore by the wind, outer skin cut down to nothing. 

With _them_ , he was nothing but a warm body on a cold night. He looked at the yellow branches. Victims of nature's indifference lying fallen in the dirt, leaves pillaged by the winter elements. His heart lurched into his throat because he _understood._ It was an understanding so sharp, so keen it near-to bowled him over. Nimbly he stepped over the broken limbs and peered up at _the Pleiades_ ; the seven pups who lit the night skies. Lore said a chief's daughter gave birth to pups after lying with a mysterious stranger who returned only to take his offspring.

_‘_ _Where you go, I go’_ she vowed to her youngest but could not uphold her promise.

She had no wings to fly.

It was a sad tale -- family torn apart by indifferent forces beyond human comprehension. _Ah well, it is what it is._ The seven stars were an adequate compass for travelers navigating their way home and that was all he required. Lost in the barren tempest he found himself outside Walts’ door. He had no idea how he had come to be here but he knew in his heart this was where he most desired to be. He reached out to touch the door and found himself inexplicably inside. He was so relieved to see something familiar that he did not pause to consider the impossibility of what lay before him. The prospect of losing his mind was an inferior evil, compared to what he wished to escape. 

Walt’s cabin had all the familiar comforts of a second home, it always had felt so to Henry. No matter how many bullet holes riddled its tough exterior this structure would always feel warm in the way of an old friends’ company. It still smelled like cedar, dust, and a hint of leather. _‘_

_Welcome back’_ it said as if the walls held him up when he wanted to fall to his knees.

_‘_ _Be at ease,’_ said the crackle-pop of the fireplace, wood sacrificed to feed the fire caused the air to heat as an abiding warmth wrapped itself around him when he thought he might shake apart from the shivers.

So cold, why was he still so very cold? He did not know and so long as he was _here_ he did not care to investigate further. Walt’s cabin was a house alive with memories both beautiful and bittersweet. The ghost of Martha wandered these quaint halls. Her smile was both inviting and infinitely sad as she turned a corner and vanished. Henry’s eyes flicked to Walt. His friend was deeply asleep on the couch, head tipped back as he snored. A fact he would staunchly deny upon waking. _Still, he refuses to believe he snores even after all these years of reliable sources._ Henry leaned against the couch, content to watch in silence. 

_“Walt,”_ he finally said. 

The image of his friend pulled away even as the words left his lips. Walt became a distant silhouette, vanishing down an endless corridor Henry could never outpace. He stopped running forward, watching, as the Walt in his dream world began to disintegrate, clay turned back to dirt.

_"_[ _Néméhotatséme_](http://cheyennelanguage.org/words/interpersonal/loveyouplural.wav) _,"_ he said, and for the first time in three weeks, his voice did not shake. 

It was steady as the rocky mountains, enduring.

There was power in it-- in speaking his heart.

It lent him courage to face the reality fast approaching. 

He spoke, in this place between worlds and the facsimile of Walt, knowing he might never get the chance to say them to the man he wanted most to hear.

This world was not real.

He was not really here with the snow and the coyotes, or in this familiar space with Walt’s buzz-saw snoring. The walls that had held him up receded and he was left on his knees, his hands grasping for what was not there to be touched. Left adrift in a world where he was neither awake or asleep, the rational part of his brain began to awaken. Slow and sluggish as a lizard who sunned itself upon a flat rock. Rudely jolted back into his body he began to recognize the signs for what they were: loss of time and the disconnection of spirit and body. _Dissociation_.

Henry was quietly falling apart at the seams, and the man panting on top of him remained ignorant to it. 

The man at his back moved, slow and deep. Sparks of desire flickered in his belly and he clenched his eyes closed. He did not want it, but his body did not care, responding to the pressure as the man flexed his hips until he bottomed out. Henry withdrew from the physical happenings, curling inward mentally. Cowards choice, perhaps, but he was past caring. He forced his mind into a white-out blankness that nothing could touch. Let it happen, what did he care. If he stayed in _absentia_ it did not matter much, did it? It was just something that _happened_ to his body while he stared, blank and numb and empty at the walls until he could feel nothing at all. An unoccupied vessel as they made his body burn with unwanted pleasures.

He wanted the chill night air, the coyote tricksters circling, Walt’s warm, cozy cabin setting back. He did not care if it was real or a mental construct, a safe-space created by his mind. More than anything he wanted to not be stuck here inside this RV which was both hot and stifling. There was a frustrated scream clawing at his throat but he did not give it a voice. More than one predator was circling tonight. He wanted his _friend_.

He could admit that truth within the confines of his head, for all that it pricked his pride to admit. 

He wanted Walt to be the big damn hero, one more time.

He could use some help right now. Without law enforcement, and in Absaroka Walt Longmire was 911 for _everyone_ , he could see no clear way out.

The smallness of the room, the inevitable bad end to this whole sordid affair, was beginning to get to him. While Henry did not suffer from claustrophobia he could feel corners collapsing inwards. He did not enjoy confinement, trapped in this single room, allowed to leave only to take care of bodily necessities. They permitted him to wash himself off, shower, and shave, even if it was just to destroy DNA evidence of their semen, and he was _grateful_ to them for it. Each time he considered: if they made him do this maybe there remained a chance they would release him.

It was screwed up, even he knew that, but he was damned grateful that they let him do that much, wash off the smell of sex in the morning. There were instances, though, when boredom became such a malady that even their attentions were a diversion from the maddening, slow, crawl of time. Even as a boy, he had hated confinement. There was a part of him, small, but very present that longed for an end to this nightmare. Any end would do. 

He was pragmatic enough to know that this would not last indefinitely. Failing that _he_ would not last so long as that with the demands they made of his body. He was a fit man for his age, but that was the caveat. He was not accustomed to being on his knees all night or taking it on his back with his feet in the air for inordinate amounts of time. Before they were satisfied he was often so worked over from tense muscles and awkward positions that by the end of the night he was more _Charlie Horse_ than Standing Bear. His age was creeping upon him and he did not welcome the reminder in the dull ache of his joints, the embarrassing strain in his thighs as they rag-dolled him in whatever manner they wanted. Maybe he was being overly dramatic.

Walt had accused him of _dramatic flourishes_ in the past, and he was not entirely wrong. But he did not like any part of this, it made it that much harder, and deeply embarrassing when he _physically_ could not do what they wanted.

He had fought, at first, until it hurt too badly to do so. He fought less, and the pain was different, an inner sundering of his spirit. Stuck between [ _Heávohe_ ](http://cheyennelanguage.org/words/spirits/devil.wav) and the blackness waiting behind his eyelids, no choice left to him was a good one, and he _hurt_. In ways, he had not yet reconciled, in ways he had not known he could. 

_Stop_ , he wanted to say as reality sank its teeth into him savaging the remnants of his disassociation. He said nothing because words were useless when the man in question did not care about consent. The feel of snow and the sounds of hunting coyotes drifted further and further away. He held on to it as tight as he could but it was like grasping cobwebs that broke at the whisper of wind through gossamer strands. It slipped from his grasp, gone to places he could not follow. Instead, he felt the sharp sting of teeth sinking in, but they were not wolf or coyote fangs, they were blunted and all too human.

_A most vicious creature man had proven himself to be since the days of antiquity._ He had not had a hickey, purple bruise sucked into fruition on his skin in years, for some time. He had come a long way since his halcyon days of high school tomfoolery and college parties where the main course was alcohol. Then, he had chased his nascent desire for rougher, male, hands on his body. He did not enjoy it now. Not the hickey. Not the groping hands. Not the suffocating weight. Thrashing did no good, he learned that quickly. All it did was force them harder inside, made their grip tighter on whatever part of him they leveraged to gain his compliance as he was bent over the mattress edge. 

His neck throbbed, a spit slick pulsation that left him vulnerable to the faint draft coming in from the small, cracked window. It burned where teeth had nicked skin as Mitch indulged his vampire fetish, lightly sucking at the wound. It could have been worse, as far as wounds went, and did not concern Henry. It stung a little, nothing more. He turned his face to the side. If he squinted he could see through the spider web of fissures in the small window. The snow made the world outside the RV look white and clean and he dropped his gaze. 

He could ever be clean of this. The musky smell of sex clung to the room, to him, and he hated it. It was an idle fancy, a _will o’wisp_ gliding across the brooks, this desperate want to be clean. He doubted sweet-smelling soap or all the sage in the world would be enough to scrub the dirt from his skin. 

The man on top of him grunted. He had lost what little rhythm he possessed several minutes ago; he would come soon. 

“Still tight.” The man used his grip on his hips to pull him back into his thrusts, the pressure inside was building. It was a relentless tidal wave of stimulation that forced Henry over the edge to his own climax. 

Henry groaned as he came, his face shoved into the pillow to muffle the sound, his face hot and wet with tears of shame. 

The man smiled, his mouth pressed a kiss into his shoulder even as Henry struggled to calm his breathing. 

“Told you I could make you come,” he muttered. “Still so fuckin’ _tight,_ Henry.” 

Rough hands gripped his hips bruising-tight as weight pressed down on his back. Caught between sweaty skin and the lumpy mattress there was nowhere to go. Now thoroughly spent and oversensitive Henry held still, waiting for the man to finish. His hands clutched at the bedding habitually, feeling the coarse texture of the blue sheets wrinkling in his grasp. There was no rhythm or finesse to Mitch; it was too fast and too hard. The burning friction wearing at raw nerves, spending up sparks of pain to flair in a kaleidoscope of _not good_. He was too hot, cramped, and smothered by the small space.

His inability to move, to shove Mitch off left him fighting the onset of panic as his breath stuttered, the sounds coming out of his mouth choked and small. He was made to _feel_ small and helpless, with his hands bound by police restraints at the headboard. Mitch’s hands roved up the length of his thighs and pulled him, impossibly, wider as he thrust in deep. Henry could not stop the burst of sound that was forced out of his throat with the exodus of breath from his lungs.

It was a painful shock and he wanted to get away from the hurt but he was flat on his stomach.

Emptied of conscious thought beyond _no_ and _stop_ he mindlessly pulled at his wrists. 

Distantly he could feel the metal rub against the skin. His wrists were covered in scabbed over abrasions, which cracked open as his body was forced into movement, used as an inanimate ragdoll. He did not beg or plead during the act. His words would only be ignored like the barking of a stray dog. Mitch only pretended to care, when it suited his purposes as he lived out the fantasy scenes that lived in his head. 

By now Henry knew what he was to them, a whore, that was all. Barely even a human. The RV creaked, shuddering against the storm and he waited for it to be over. Henry tried to drown out the noises, awful wet slap of skin, hoarse pants, and a litany of _fucks_ breathed into his ear, but he failed.

Hot breath ghosted over Henry’s neck in a cruel mockery of intimacy that sickened him when he could still vividly recall _another_ man’s touch, someone he did want. Rough stubble scraped against his thighs leaving marks he _wanted_ to wear on his body, hands that could be gentle even in the wild throes of passion. Perhaps it would have been better for him if he did not. He fought to keep a solid, mental barrier between the going on’s here and what it meant to him when he lay with a man who meant something altogether different than the stranger who rutted into him now.

“Fuck,” the man groaned as he chased his sex-endorphin high to its finish. Henry felt the hot rush of come spilling inside himself and shuddered. Mitch rarely used condoms, small mercies that the other man did so religiously. 

As usual, the man grunted when he came. 

Henry trembled where he lay, pressed beneath the sweaty, sticky weight of the man. Strange that the act of choice altered so much about the mechanics of sex. He was disgusted at the feeling of slick wetness where they were joined and his own unwanted reaction.

“That was good.” Mitch sighed, sounding like a man deeply content with the course of his evening. After a few minutes, his grip on Henry loosened and his breathing petered out. He propped his chin atop Henry’s shoulder blade, the bristles of his beard irritated the skin leaving stark red abrasions. 

Henry's nostrils flared in distaste, he could smell him, cheap cologne, stale beer, and toothpaste. He could still _feel_ the man inside, too, for all that he wished he could not. 

“Why don’t you ever talk much, hmm?” Mitch quietly asked, casually running his hands up Henry’s side. “I know you can, sure cussed me out good that first time.”

Henry wished the man would just leave him be, but that would be asking for too much. Tired, sore, and disgruntled Henry kicked back his impulse to be snappish or violent in his response. Mitch was close enough that he could theoretically head-butt him at this angle. Henry threw the notion out the window, it would require pressing the man, still inside him, _deeper._ Henry considered the satisfaction at hearing the _cra-ck_ of a broken nose but it was short-lived. It might be worth the resulting headache. Might even be worth what would probably happen later for all of a single moment. He did not act on his impulse. Wisdom of experience dictated it was _not_ worth it. 

“What -” Henry paused, his voice came out all wrong, soft. Exhaustion crept in without his permission, bleeding into the edges. He hated that, too. He swallowed and began again. “What more can you possibly want from me?”

“This isn’t how I imagined it, you know?” Mitch breathed into the shell of Henry’s ear, his words when spoken were close and intimate, feeding into his idea of pillow talk between lovers. 

“I wanted to ask you out, you know?” Mitch said, quite suddenly sounding very young and insecure. “I knew you’d never give me the time of day if I asked. Trig, well, he had a plan. But -- but you should know this wasn’t what I imagined.”

Henry listened as he spoke, but could not for the life of him pretend to know what Mitch wanted in return for this confession. He knew from the ensuing silence that Mitch was fishing for a particular response. Was it forgiveness? Validation for his actions and a _‘there, there’_ pat on the head? Perhaps. 

Henry did not know if this was something he could give, they had taken everything else. 

Mitch’s hand smoothed along Henry’s ribcage as he waited. The other man was gentler with his touches now that he had gotten what he had wanted, most nights followed this pattern. When it was like this Henry could easily imagine it was not Mitch who lay behind him _\-- inside him --_ but he never let himself slip down that path of thinking. Mitch was not...Mitch was not. It did not matter that it would make the touching, the fucking, more bearable. He could not do that; close his eyes and play pretend in the dark when another man fucked him so hard he wanted to cry. Henry squeezed his eyes shut forcing himself to remain in the present even as his mind automatically tried to drift off. It was not a habit he wanted to develop. 

“And what is it you imagined? Did you imagine I would become your _Patty Hearst_ ? Is that what you imagined?” Henry asked, desperate to end the conversation. “I am sorry to inform you but ninety-two percent of hostages do _not_ develop what mainstream media terms Stockholm Syndrome.”

Mitch huffed, laughing a little. Henry could feel the displacement of weight as it rumbled from the man's chest and grimaced into the mattress. 

“Really? I mean, no, not really. Fuck, how do you know all this shit, anyhow.” 

Henry threw out both the first and second thoughts that came to mind, he was all too aware of the vulnerability of his current position. He reached for an answer that would satisfy Mitch, but not insult the man.

He was young, and his pride easily bruised. Henry did not wish for more bruises of his own, he had more than enough. 

“I read, nothing more,” Henry said. “Wisdom says it is better to be a person who knows things than to be the person who does not.”

Mitch hummed, his hand coming up to run through Henry's hair, threading through the section at the corner of his ear where Henry knew full well it was beginning to gray. Walt had been kind enough to point it out once. 

He had also been wise enough to bring it up _after_ the sex, the old fox. 

“Wisdom, huh?” Mitch murmured. 

Henry wanted to go to sleep. He wanted Mitch to shut up and leave, so he could _try_. Sleeping here was not unlike closing one's eyes among a pack of ravenous lions, incredibly hard, but necessary. He put it off as long as he could, the black behind his eyelids offered no sanctuary from the horrors conjured by his sleeping mind, but it did not last indefinitely. His head ached terribly. A persistent throbbing sensation that was building momentum, pressure spots knotting at his temples that would shortly become one hell of a migraine. Fingers snapped in Henry’s face and he blinked hard. His brow furrowed as he registered that he had blanked out. He had not realized it was happening and this added loss of control was becoming alarming.

“Hey. Would it kill you to make a little conversation with me? Fuck, snow coming down like it is, Absaroka’s going to be buried to her tits in it. It’s just going to be us three out here for a while longer.”

Henry bit the corner of his lip as he tugged the restraints. He wished he could press his hands over his ears as Mitch’s tone climbed higher in pitch. “I did not kidnap you. I did not put a gun to your head and-”

Henry cried out as the weight as his back shifted, pulling away, and new hurts clamored for his attention. They could get in fucking line. He closed his eyes, fighting off nausea. Trying, even through the escalating pain, to remember if there had ever been a time when he did not feel like shit. If there had existed such a time it was lost to him now. 

“Fuck, sorry I asked,” the man said as he yanked up his wrangles. “Goddamn Indian.” 

Mitch snatched up his gray sweater from the floor and left the room. 

Henry could hear him cracking open another beer, flopping into his chair like a hormonal teenager. Mitch was an asshole but he was gone, Henry considered that a minor win and kept his opinions to himself. He overheard the low rumble of male voices as they spoke in the larger section of the RV, about him specifically. 

“Finished already, that was quick, -- even for you,” Trig teased, followed by the sound of back-slapping. 

He grimaced as they enjoyed their male bonding, drinking beer and talking while his body ached from overuse. 

“Maybe I’ll have a go, what do you think?”

Henry froze, his heart damn near skipping a beat in anxiety as he waited for Trig to continue speaking or enter his tiny back room. 

“Eh, do what you want, but we’re going to have to clean him up if you know what I mean? If you want him all pretty for the camera,” Mitch shrugged. 

Trig sighed. “Oh, well, _sh-it_ ,” he said, and they both laughed. 

Anger flared in his belly, but died a quick death, replaced with mortification as his face burned bright red in the poor lighting. He wanted to scream, he wanted to curse loud enough that the _Great Spirit_ might take notice, but he did not. Trig was right around the corner and he dared not make a sound to draw further attention. He swallowed past a throat gone tight, tears threatened at the corner of his eyes but he willed them back.

He was tired, sore, and dehydrated, tears would not help.

It was small consolation that Trig would leave him alone tonight when tomorrow he would have to bear their clinical, impersonal touching as they made sure he was _fit_ for viewing, and more fucking. It was somehow worse. Having to be dependent on them for personal hygiene. Requiring their permission for such necessities bothered him, more than the sex even did most days. 

He knew his perspective was skewed, but he was relieved that Mitch’s desires, at least, were uncomplicated. 

A quick fuck, a few bites, and Mitch either fell into a dead sleep or went off to do whatever he usually did when he was not on top of him. Trig was less simple, he needed complete control when he felt he lost that he became enraged. 

Naked, half curled on the narrow bed Henry remembered the last time he had not kept his own mouth shut around Trig. He had ended up chained in the snow like a junkyard dog. His memory was clouded but he was certain he almost died, Mitch had taken a chance disobeyed his companion and brought Henry inside before his bits started falling off from the ice and snow. Of the ways, he had considered leaving this world and journeying into the next death by exposure to the elements had not been on the list. But then, neither had this, had it? His brain dredged up an old memory; a place and time where he did not hurt in every way a man could be made to hurt.

Henry closed his eyes and fell into the past. 

There was a fireside hearth and the aroma of a steak cooking in the oven. Henry in a rare mood was stretched out on the couch, his head propped up by Walt’s knee as his friend read aloud from a book in his cabin. Walt’s large, calloused hands, which were so experienced with the modes of occupational violence but also knew how to play Henry like the keys of his beautiful piano, until he was desperate and begging for Walt’s touch, grappling and surrendering in equal measure until they were joined as one.

Those hands, well versed in many skills, were always careful in the turning of pages.

Walt did not want to tear or crease the edging unduly. Henry, while sprawled across his lap, had taken a small, private pleasure in watching Walt and his big hands maneuver the thin bits of paper. The other man was almost unconscious of his actions, as he went about it, it was this that caught Henry’s attention. Such care, and it was not even a conscious effort. Henry had enjoyed the elegant prose, it had lacked the wordiness of other poetry, and the low steady rumble of Walt’s voice, which was in of itself a rare pleasure.

_Pain has an element of blank_

_It cannot recollect_

_When it began—or if there were_

_A day when it was not._

He enjoyed the frenzied lovemaking that followed even more. Desperate with the need to feel skin to skin, to be one, belts and shirts had strewn the living room until there were no barriers left between them. Each kiss was like the first, even as the rightness of it echoed across time. As though they had done this eons ago beside a brook overlooking yellow rolling plains. 

Each man divested themselves of their cloth-spun armor, choosing to lay themselves bare in flesh and spirit as they shared their bodies. Walt, kind in his unobtrusive way, had thrown down a tribal blanket before pulling Henry down to the floor with him. It felt as if they could not get close enough, straining against fragile mortal bodies, as they crashed together over the cliff of _want-need-desire_. 

Walt’s rough hands had been gentle that night. As though Henry were a page from one of Walt’s beloved books. It was enough.

Henry lay in silence, adrift in the soft haze of memory, as the room slowly stopped spinning and reality solidified. A solitary tear slipped down the side of his face remembering a touch that did not hurt and a man that he wanted, had _always_ wanted. The electric pain behind his eyes was dying down to something smaller. Less sticking needles in his eyes and more of a dull throbbing ache. He stared at the ugly mustard yellow panel, the same ugly mustard yellow panel he has been staring at for going on three weeks. He was too tired to fight this night, not like he did the first time it happened anyways.

He tried to forget, even now. 

Those small desperate sounds that escaped when he had been shoved face-down on the bed, the burning rush of shame. 

_I should have fought harder._ He was bitter with the knowledge, certain there must have been something more he could have done. He tried to forget, but it was all still right there, in the back of his mind, still happening. 

His mind drifted sometimes now and when he came back to himself a terrifying sickness settled. _What if this was it?_ What if the last thing he ever saw really was this ugly mustard yellow paneling. The last thing he felt, or heard, or did would be confined to this room, this man, and this ugly as hell paneling. And for what? He had been shoved into the oldest profession in the world because a few assholes wanted extra cash they got from submitting homemade videos to questionable Internet sites. He exhaled a ragged breath and counted backward to sixty, struggling to keep his composure, he did not get past forty before he was overwhelmed. Shame, it sat like soured milk in his stomach, he was sick with it. 

He had not been the one batting his eyelashes and shaking his ass for free drinks. All this had been instigated because of her habit of making bed-room eyes at customers. It was a game the girls liked to play. They would count out their earnings at a table in the corner and see who got the biggest tip at the end of the day. The winner paid for drinks on those nights. It seemed somewhat counter productive, but it was none of his business so he kept his nose out of it. He had pointed out how un-wise it was to play such games in a bar frequented by men with lowered inhibitions, and sometimes even lower inclinations.

He had been told unequivocally to _‘butt out.’_

He had done so but kept his eye on them, both when he could spare them. 

There was only so much he could offer when he was often run off his feet during the busy hours. He wanted to lay the fault with her, relinquishing the blame that bowed his shoulders to the point of breaking. But he could not do it in the end. Whatever she might have done to lead the asshole on, she did not deserve this ugliness in her life. She was young and had the rest of her life ahead of her. She would face enough obstacles being a Cheyenne woman, she did not need to be another statistic stapled to a wall. No one deserved this. Amy White Feather had a ten-year-old kid-sister and a mother who loved her. She had people who were waiting for her at home when her shift at the bar ended. Who was going to notice when Henry Standing Bear did not return home? No one except the feral tabby-cat he sometimes fed. If he was lucky. 

_Alright, perhaps that is a little unfair. Walt will notice. Eventually._ Henry reminded himself. They had had sex. _Really good sex at that_ , Henry mused, Walt had ridden him hard and fast, kissed him as he came and stayed until he drifted off to sleep. Then, the stubborn fool began to avoid him so it might take a while but he would get around to it in his own time. That was just how it went with Walt and Henry had long since accepted that. No one was perfect. _He will realize, eventually, but too late this time._ The hour-glass was tipped and the sand was spilling out. The last call was right around the corner, he could feel the mounting tension as it drew nearer. Trig was getting bored with him and once that happened it was out of his hands. Henry chose not to linger on how much his death would affect Walt. It made his own chest squeeze painfully. He had enough collective hurts of his own to keep track of. He was too damn tired to add someone else’s to the list. 

Winter had swept in like a hurricane this year burying the world in silence and enforced distance by piles of snow, the cold made his bones ache these days. Walt would take no notice of his absence. He would catch bad guys, read his beloved classics, and avoid the fact that it had meant more than a quick fuck in the dark. At least, Henry hoped it had. It was all he could do, in the end. Hope.

Really, when it came to things such as feelings Walt Longmire could be as skittish as a twice-kicked dog. It could take three times as long before the man would spit out whatever thoughts he had been chewing. When he got there, to that critical point, _then_ he might notice Henry was not where Walt seemed to always expect him to be. His heart twisted to realize that Walt was going to face this alone, the actions left undone, and far too late. Henry knew Walt, as a friend, and as a lover. This was going to haunt him, but he did not blame him. He should have known Walt would run, it had been too soon to indulge in the hunger that clawed in their bellies whenever it had gone unsatisfied for too long. That was often the way it was between them. Henry did not blame him, he was not much better.

So much of what was between them had always been left unsaid. A promise with a kiss, a vow fulfilled with the silence of understanding born from years of history. Softness shared in the dark and left between the blankets and middling hours before the crackle and glow of a flickering fireplace. 

Walt was not a man given to an excess of words. Walt was not free with his words either, it was not his way. It would surprise many people to learn that when left alone with his books Walt was a quiet man. He had a proclivity for hoarding them, words, and books, like a dragon, guarded its gold. He mulled over his thoughts before he chose to speak ripping away his outer-bark of stoicism and laying bare his private thoughts. Henry did not know how he was with others but years of familiarity had allowed him a place of significance. Walt _let_ him inside his private space.

Henry if he was honest, and he always tried to be with himself, loved that about his friend. 

He did _not_ love the long, drawn-out awkwardness in place now. This wasn’t Walt being meticulous, this was Walt thinking himself into a corner, waiting for Henry to drag him out of it. 

Walt was not predisposed to _‘just because’_ calls. He would need a solid reason to stick his neck out and go looking for him after the way things had been left. A hastily scribbled _‘Gone hunting in Wichita’_ on a yellow sticky-note stuck beside the phone was an awful lot to pin his far-flung hopes on. In conclusion, the probability of a door-busting rescue scenario worthy of the silver screen’s _John Wayne_ was poor. Walter Longmire would not be coming to his rescue. He was well and truly fucked. 

Mitch was tolerable, but the other man who held him captive was deeply unsettling, and for more reasons than the sex. It was how he looked at him, as though he were not even the same species, Henry had seen the look before. It never ended well. His stomach tightened unpleasantly but he had no desire to vomit so he forced his thoughts down another path. As much as Mitch and his affectation of intimacy repulsed him he did not concern Henry half so much as the other man. 

Mitch had even made noises about letting him go, _‘when he was done’_ he would say. Usually after sex, or right before he slumped off to sleep. Henry was not naïve enough to take him at his word. Hope was a dangerous thing after all, but he did not seem quite as invested in making him bleed as his companion was. Henry considered himself fairly thick-skinned. 

He had lost any latent sensitivity to prurient name-calling at an early age, running a bar and being _Cheyenne_ had settled the rest. He picked his battles better than that, mostly. He had been called all manner of things from ‘ _shiny-apple,’ ‘cherry-nigger,’_ and the tame brand of ‘ _Injun’_ made popular by Hollywood's western pop-culture. Personal experience dictated this was the white man's easy, go-to insult. Henry accredited this to drunkenness and lack of imagination. But _whore,_ now there was a new appellation even for him. It was what the other man called him, never by his name. 

_‘Hey, whore,’_ he said, or _‘fucking Indian!’_

He was no man’s whore. He knew this and yet he found he needed to remind himself that this was not his choice. Lack of _‘no’_ did not amount to consent. He had said _no_ , the first time, and the second, and the third. For all the good _that_ did him. He did not say it anymore. 

_‘Whore,’_ Trig called him. 

He said it with such deliberateness there was no mistaking his intent. It cut a little deeper each time. Rationally he knew it should not bother him any more than the rest of the things he had been called in his lifetime and despite what Walt thought he did not have an extensive repertoire of bedroom experiences with men. It seemed _whore_ was a slur most often employed by drunken men with little, pencil-dicks trying to prove their masculinity. He knew all this. Yet there existed a world between rationale and emotion and like the Tamaracks shaking in the winter gale Henry could feel himself being to buckle under the weight. 

He was no man’s whore, maybe, but they were halfway to making a liar of him in the attempt. That word was clinging to him like dirt he could not scrub clean, burrowing its claws under his skin and into his very thoughts, a dark seedling whose roots were fast spreading. Something was going to break, it was only a matter of time. Tamaracks were proud trees, their branches heavy with yellow leaves, but they could only bend so far before their rugged limbs would break and they would give way to the storm's will. He was no man’s whore, but it was a difficult affirmation to hold to when he felt only half a _man_ in the first place. 

Henry could no longer see the beauty of an Absaroka winter, the raw destructive force that was nature unleashed. He felt too keenly the weight of the storm. No longer able to find that place within himself that was still and quiet in the face of this violent unmaking. The storm had grown stronger, and he was tired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note: As a person with limited Native American knowledge I have peppered a few words and cultural details in this revised narrative. I have done this in the interest of writing _Henry Standing Bear_ as well as this amateur writer can hope to. I claim all mistakes and apologize.
> 
> “Spirit Words.” Cheyenne Spirit Words, cheyennelanguage.org/words/spirits.htm.
> 
> Heávohe - Devil (probably a loan translation from Spanish diablo 'devil')
> 
> Néméhotatséme. I love you.
> 
> “The Girl Who Married A Dog.” A Cheyenne Folktale, native-languages.org/cheyennestory3.htm.
> 
> “Will-o-the-whisp.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation.
> 
> Dickinson, Emily. "Pain Has An Element of Blank."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is hanging up a sign post and it reads "Find Henry Standing Bear" but Walt Longmire isn't getting the hint.

_Present Day:_

It was cold as a grave in the woods. Walt didn’t know why he was out in the middle of the woods during a winter storm _. Maybe he’d caught a case of stupid?_ Must have to keep tracking an outline in the dark that always stayed too far to properly catch up with. Grunting like an irritated grizzly Walt sloughed onward. It was coming down heavy, the wet sting of sleet cutting into his exposed face as the bitter cold rapidly stole his warmth and froze his breath into crystals. It was a never-ending nightmare of white so damn bright he felt he would have a permanent squint like Clint Eastwood in any of his old Western flicks. 

Walt pushed on, wading through snow that reached up to his waist as he tried to outpace the bulky figure ahead as it lumbered along. He was connected, he and it, and he didn’t know how but there was a pale silver thread wrapped around his thumb and the farther away it got the more he felt this tug that seemed to cut right down to his heart. He stopped, once, and felt the line pull taunt.

It felt like ghost cords had wrapped around his limbs tugging until he could see blood rising to the surface of his skin, before flesh split open he started walking and he hadn’t stopped again.

Deep in his gut Walt knew if he took his eyes off the figure it would be gone forever. He didn’t want that. 

He couldn’t figure out why it mattered, he just knew it did. He could feel the steady _thump-thump_ of his heart jack-hammering in his chest and his throat was too full of cotton for speech. Lot of good shouting would do, he didn’t even know if what he was following was a man. He could swear there was something of the familiar about the dark outline, _it_ was important. Kind of like a sturdy life-line to keep from getting lost in this labyrinth of blinding whiteness. 

It stopped abruptly and so did Walt. The dark, shadowy outline began to morph into something recognizable now that they had reached a standstill. Snow was pelting his cheeks leaving his skin chapped raw and Santa-red as Walt blinked, staring into the gray-dark of the coming twilight. 

It occurred to him what he was seeing was a very bear-shaped form and his adrenaline spiked, his heart giving a might kick as though to say _‘you stupid man, look what you’ve done now.’_ He decided his heart sounded oddly like his Aunt Meredith, she’d been mad as a march-hare so he gave it no account. Walt stood there a moment before he held up his thumb and gave the silver thread a hard tug. 

Blood welled up and he sucked away the red copper -- last thing he needed was a wild animal scenting fresh blood. 

He paused to glance down, taking the thread in his hands, examining the solid feel of it sliding against his hand. It was beautiful, really. How had he come to possess something that fucking gorgeous? It was slim, but the whole length of it sparked with pale white lights, held in the palm of his hand it felt _warm_. It felt damn near unbreakable, too. 

Walt let it slip from his hands, deciding he didn’t mind it so much after all. It felt important, like _Ariadne’s_ famous ball of yarn, except it didn’t feel like there was a Minotaur waiting on the other side. 

It felt like home. 

Walt looked up at the bear, it had stopped to stare back at the stupid human whose been chasing it for half a mile and wondered if he’d get the chance to go home. Maybe it thinks he’s a hunter?

Walt doesn’t know why, but he hoped not. It was to fucking magnificent to be a stuffed head on someone’s fireplace. Maybe it was thinking about eating him, instead. Maybe he’d deserve it, too. It was a damn fool thing to do, chasing a shadow into a snow storm.

The bear did not eat him or show any indications of wanting to as they observe one another in a moment of perfect stillness. It looked back at him with deep, obsidian dark eyes and Walt felt a different emotion rise; an abiding sadness that settled over his bones like an extra coating of ice.

Bear’s ought to be asleep in their dens spared the winter-hunger other predators faced when prey grew scarce on the ground - that was the natural order of things but something had gone wrong, disturbing the natural order.

He raised his hand palm bared in an empty gesture of apology and he didn't know why he’d done it, raised his hand with that translucent silver cord still attached to his thumb. The bear couldn’t understand him and trying to bridge the gap was like shouting into a windstorm; his mouth was moving and he knew what he meant to say but no one else could hear worth a damn.

Walt figured poachers must have disturbed the bear's hibernation and there was no fixing that. An action once done could not be undone. Like _Pandora_ and her little box of horrors once opened there was no stuffing the demons of woe back inside; out came Misery, Death, and Sadness to whisper in the ears of mankind. A little voice in the back of Walt’s mind that sounded suspiciously like Henry spoke _. It is what it is._

Walt hated being wrong and he hated the deterministic ideology that bordered on fatalism Henry occasionally fell into. 

People were responsible for their own actions, dammit. Remove that responsibility and he’d either be out of a job or a whole lot busier in a bad way. Henry, if he was here, would be correct but no one said Walt had to like it. 

The bear would just have to forage like the rest of the forest wildlife until its fortune changed. Starlight hit the thread just right catching his eye again. He watched the silver thread shift, shining faintly as it disappeared from his sight near the bears paws. Walt frowned, giving his thread another, gentle tug. In response the bear stood up on its back legs and Walt felt his breath quicken, eyes widening. _What?_

Walt got caught up staring into obsidian dark eyes where he found an uncanny familiarity he couldn't place. Before he could try, the bear faded like a ghost into the blizzard. Where once there was standing a creature strong and powerful, walking against the wind now was nothing but white wisps and gray mist. 

“Come back!” Walt called out knowing there was something he should have said -- words that were worth shouting into the storm even if they weren't fully heard, or understood. _Something._ It was a futile effort, snow had swallowed up his words and the bear was gone. 

Walt knelt, inspecting tracks that led off into the distance but they were already disappearing and all he could do was watch, staring in complete silence as the frigid cold of winter chilled him down to the bone. Inch by inch the silver thread was fading, dissolving like ash even as he tried to protect it from the elements. He was too late. 

At home in his bed Walt Longmire sat up breathing hard as a strange feeling of loss pricked at his chest. That vacant spot a few inches above his ribs which no amount of alcohol could ever fill. 

“Jesus Christ, what did I eat?” Walt muttered to himself rubbing the bristles on his chin with the heel of his hand as he untangled the sheets from his legs. It was so quiet he could hear the wordless murmur of strong winds rattling through the trees. Walt paused to listen as somewhere far off a wolf howled. It’s sonorous wail faded into silence and no others joined in with it’s nighttime singing. It was alone. _You and me both, pal,_ Walt thought as he stared at the ceiling.

He could feel the rough stubble tickle across the pads of his fingers and figured he could do with a shave. _Later, later will be soon enough._ He rubbed his hands together, the friction generating enough warmth to take the edge off the chill that had the joints in his fingers aching. He watched as his breath trailed up in a fog, realizing that the heater must have quit on him some time during the night.

Well, that had been one hell of a dream. His first knee-jerk reaction to it was normal, he wanted to talk about it with Henry. Not that they often sat around talking about dreams and _feelings_ or anything but this one had a strangeness to it that left him foot wrong footed, it had felt important. It was strange to realize that he couldn’t. 

_What would I even say,_ Walter wondered to himself. ‘ _Look, I made a mess of things and I know that now. But can we put that on the back-burner for a second -- I want to talk to you about something different that’s bugging me.’_

Walt chuckled darkly, not because it was particularly funny, but because it might actually work. If he just picked up the phone and tried it. He blew out a breath, dismissing his first instinct. Besides a ringing phone in the small hours of the night wasn’t a good way to begin any kind of apology.

He shelved that thought to revisit at a more appropriate hour. It went without being said that if Walt didn’t fix what was unresolved between him and Henry he might be forced to develop new instincts. He wanted that about as much as a cell phone of his own so everyone and their brother could badger him 24 hours at any time they pleased. It felt unnatural, this desire people had to carry around something that was used to find people, criminals, all the time. 

The gears in his head kept spinning, round and round like a _Merry-Go-Round_ complete with the haunting echo of circus tunes -- it was making him re-evaluate what it was he wanted. The little voice in the back of his head, calling it his better angels, or his conscience, wanted him to face why he needed to fix this. 

If he left well enough alone, they would find a new pattern, new ways of being friends. Sex had come into the equation later. It could leave now, slink out the back door like a troublesome third wheel -- no questions asked. It was an option, it just wasn’t palatable to Walt. The very notion made his insides pucker as though he’d taken a bite out of a raw lemon with a bloody lip. Sex wasn’t all they were, but it was a part of it. 

Walt stared at the ceiling imagining the sky outside, black with endless lines. His life wasn’t like that, it wouldn’t go on forever. It was short and very finite in comparison to the wide expanse that existed in the upper atmosphere. He had to ask himself, _why_ , why hadn’t he decided what to do yet, didn’t he already know, or was he just afraid of being alone?

He didn’t know. Or, he did, but he didn’t know what to do with the knowledge. 

He and Henry had been sparking at each other since they were young bucks, true. But it was more than that, too. There was a rightness in it when he had Henry in his arms, wrapped so close he didn’t know where he ended and Henry began. His heart gave a flutter, the wings of a bird beating against the cage of his rib bones, his breath becoming heavy in the hazy recollection of sweet, slick friction as desire pooled low in his gut. 

He thought about touching himself, wanted to a bit, his dick twitching with interest already on board with the idea as he lay in a bed full of memories. Nights spent lost in a daze of sweat, sex, and kissing, loosing himself in the sensations; the feel of warm, tanned skin, rough hands, and dark eyes...Fuck, he remembered. 

Walt considered getting dressed, going out, hitting a bar. There must be at least one open even at this hour. 

But it’s been so _long_ and he had never been that smooth with the ladies. Martha had been an exception, a whirlwind of golden sunshine that blew in his door one day and never left. “Until death do we part,” Walt murmured, his words swallowed up into the unrelenting blackness of the room.

Right or wrong he’d rather fall down the rabbit hole of _what-was_ than have some meaningless screw in the dark with someone whose name knew he wouldn’t bother to learn. They would be a poor substitute for what he wants, but doesn’t know how to let himself have. 

Walt laid back a little, lazily stroking himself as he closed his eyes and pretended. 

_It was him and Henry in the little bed above the bar, it would squeak when he wrestled Henry onto it. Henry would land on top, he usually did, bracing himself with a hand pressed flat against the broad expanse of Walt's chest, ‘stay down’ his look would say._

_He’d consider flipping them over but would resist the urge for the moment. He liked the solid weight pressing him into the mattress as Henry straddled his hips. He’d obey. Enjoying the view as Henry leaned forward, reaching for the slick kept in the nightstand._

_Walt never asked if there had been others. He didn’t want to know._

_Walt would snag the container from his hands, grinning, as he popped the cap smearing the stuff on his own fingers._

_As he worked him open, slow and careful, Walt would become enraptured by Henry’s closed eyes, the sweep of dark lashes on high cheekbones, and quiet breathy sounds as the other man rocked to press against his finger which, in turn, rubbed their flesh together with the most delectable friction._

_It was in this moment that Walt could pretend that this was their newly discovered normal, that he had found the right words..._

Walt furrowed his brow, grabbing himself a little tighter, moving his hand much slower as he rewound the visuals playing out in his head trying to find the sweet spot of _want_ and _need_ and _have_. “Henry” he said, breathing the name aloud, breaking the silence of the room with a name spoke like a sacred invocation. 

As though summoned by the speaking of his name he could picture Henry now. Shameless and nakedly sprawled atop Walt’s chest, his dark eyes soft and fond. Walt didn’t need speech to know what they were saying. _‘Well, now what, cowboy?’_

_Don’t rush,_ Walt thought. He slowed down the stroke of his hand on his dick. Immersing himself in the image he had built up. No, this time, he’d take his time -- emblazon the moment into memory, stockpiled for nights when his bed was cold and full of too many ghosts. 

He loved the intimacy of sex, the close, warm wetness of being allowed inside another person; the self disappearing into the abyss of _joie de vivre_ …

But this wasn’t just anyone he was thinking of. 

It was Henry. 

Walt wanted to touch, kiss, hold, he wanted _everything._ Overwhelmed with so many wants that picking one became hard. Thinking wasn't easy, either, as all his blood rushed south leaving him lightheaded and aching. 

He was drowning in his head, a boat adrift at sea, and Henry was the ocean he could lose himself in. The ocean that drowned him in sensory bliss, shutting down his brain, as their fantasy bodies moved in tandem. 

_Deciding he’d had enough prep, wanting more than fingers Henry would take the container from Walt and get him slick. His hand was deft and thorough, careful not to tip Walt over the edge he was riding. To steady himself he’d count backward. In Latin._

_He didn’t want to go off too soon. Tredecim, duodecim, undecim, decem --_

_Walt gasped, his head knocking into the headboard with a solid thup. He didn’t feel it, all he felt was the hot, tightness surrounding him. His hands would scrabble, blind, before finding purchase at Henry’s trim waist._

_He didn’t let himself forget that moment, pressed so close it almost seemed they breathed in the same air. Body and spirit melded into one being…_

_It stayed with him, imprinting on his soul, the feel of Henry tight and slick around Walt’s length until his eyes fell shut, head tipping back in pleasure. Walt would chase the exposed line of throat with his tongue, teeth gently nipping at the hollow._

_He’d taste the sweat at Henry’s collarbone as he buried himself deep inside. Henry would card his hand through his hair, his mouth parting in a small gasp as Walt grabbed his hips and thrust hard enough to rock them both over the edge._

_To see him like that? Limed in the pale half-light Walt would fall, all over again. He always did._

_How the fuck had he gotten to have someone this fucking gorgeous? Walt must have done something right in another life because it sure wasn’t this one. “Oh fuck” he’d groan, the muscles in his neck corded tight, his eyes half-lidded as he looked up at Henry._

_Henry wouldn’t say anything, but a lazy grin would curl the corner of his mouth as he moved his hips in ways Walt would be remembering for months._

_Wanting to make sure his friend found his end first, Walt would stroke the other man in time with his thrusts until he too fell over the cliff's edge of white-bliss._

_Walt would soften and slip out of him while Henry lay on top keeping them pressed close, they would pause taking a moment to catch their breath before separating. Here in this dream world neither would speak. What was there to say that was not crass?_

_Thanks._

_That was good._

_I……._

_It was all true, but even here Walt did not speak._

_Even in the dream, Walt missed his heat._

Walt groaned into the silence of the room, coming into his hand. He grabbed a tissue and wiped himself off. His bodily needs were sated but he felt twice as empty. He grumbled, rolling onto his side wondering if he should consider prescription pills for a few nights of turn-out-the-light’s no-one’s home sleep. _Has it come to that? Just sleep, you idiot,_ Walt thought to himself and closed his eyes. He opened them twenty minutes later.

He didn’t feel better after chasing his own solitary desire, if anything he felt worse. Like he’d taken something sacred and sullied it for a few moments gratification. 

Dream Henry had only been that, a vivid conjuration of his brain. He didn’t want imaginary fever dreams, he wanted the flesh and blood man. Wanting Henry was like wanting to breathe air in his lungs and fire in his blood. _It just is -- more than want, but not quite a need. I could live without. But I don’t want to. Same as I didn’t want to live without Martha. But I have too,_ Walt thought to himself. He supposed the difference was that he got a choice in the matter. Henry was still here. 

He wanted, he needed, Walt just hadn’t decided how to make it known. When Martha died he’d pushed everyone away -- some that might have needed a shoulder to lean against, too. He’d done the best he could, but his best hadn’t been enough. It was another regret tallied to the board he kept track of in his head. Wrong’s done.

Walt glared into the dark, stubbornly letting the desire to reach out to Henry ebb away like sand between his fingers. _It’d earn me a ribbing anyhow_ , Walt thought. It didn’t take much to imagine the unimpressed look Henry would shoot at him, judging eyebrows raised in question as though to say, _‘Really, Walt?’_

_Nope. Let it be for tonight,_ Walt thought, resolved to keep this night-time vision private. He turned over on his other side, trying to settle in for the night but his brain wasn’t read to let him escape.

“Chasing a bear into a snow storm?” he muttered to himself, irritated with himself, his latent bouts of insomnia, and the ghostly remnants of a midnight revere. It had all been a little bit _too_ on the nose to stomach. 

_And what was the meaning of that silver thread?_ Walt felt compelled to look down at his thumb, barely visible in the thin threads of light piercing the dark of his bedroom. His brows pinched together in irritation at the thin line of broken skin encircling his thumb in a perfect band. Or a small noose. 

_What the hell?_ He examined his thumb, holding it up to his face for a moment. He felt ten kinds of a fool scowling at the clean, crisp bed sheets that didn’t have a single red stain to show on or under the pillow’s where his hands had been resting. Not knowing what to make of it Walt shrugged it off and went back to ruminating his strange dream.

He wanted to dismiss it as the uncanny mechanisms of his sleeping mind spinning their wheels as he slept; but he suspected it had more to do with a few things he’d left unspoken. Words he’d buried deep down in his subconscious that needed saying. Stuff he kept shoving off. _Let it be tomorrow's problem,_ he thought. Let sleeping bears lie, they said and for good reason. Henry had sufficient grounds to be cross with him, too. He’d been a bit of a bastard. 

It didn’t matter, not really, because it was far too late for that kind of conversation -- and something like what needed to be said was done face to face. Using the phone would be the cowards way out.

Walt may have been a bastard in his handling of the situation but he wasn’t yellow.

Henry was probably sleeping on the too small bed above the _Red Pony_. Walt paused his nostrils flaring as he considered the odds that he wasn’t sleeping alone. Within the space of a heart-beat a seedling of jealousy grew and bloomed into a vibrant sprig of green. 

His imagination running wild, Walt hated them already. This nameless, faceless person that got to lie beside Henry soaking up the furnace-like heat of his body. Did they know his worth? How to touch him in ways that made his calm facade crack right open -- all his emotions laid bare when they had him in their arms? 

Did they know how to kiss him, deep and filthy...

God, his mouth had been so warm, the caress of his lips softer than a mans’ lips had any right being. He’d tasted like the first winter-rain, clean, cold, and everything Walt had ever wanted.

Did they know that? Walt doubted it. 

It was his own choice, this persisting absence of what he wanted, which was the hell of it. Walt could be that person. He knew from his toes to the crown of his head that if he went to Henry right now, that person would be _him_.

But he was here instead.

Alone in a bed too big for one freezing his ass off thinking about a strange dream. 

He consoled himself with the knowledge that he knew where to find Henry when he was ready to dig up those words he’d been burying, then the _‘I’m sorry’_ that was overdue. And he was, sorry. It was cold comfort when he knew that even if Henry was sleeping alone tonight he might not be tomorrow. Henry had a way about him, drawing people into his inner circle and setting them at ease with his calm nature. People either loved him or they hated him with very little in the way of middle ground.

And those that fell in the first camp tended to fall into his bed sooner or later, Walt should know, he’d been one of them.

As he lay there in the dark surrounded by memories that wouldn’t leave him in peace and goosebumps rising on his skin the remnants of sleep dwindled. Walt’s brain switched from mostly-asleep to awake and melancholic. 

Braving the winter air Walt got up and wandered into the kitchen, flicking the knob on the stove, groggy from sleep he slopped five spoons full of coffee grounds before he filled the pot with water and reclined against the sink as he waited for it to boil. He scratched his bare chest, anticipating that a hot mug of coffee would see him the rest of the way into wakefulness. 

The little digital clock at his bedside read 4:06 PM. He grins, it was a good thing he hadn’t called Henry. 

He would have gotten an earful for calling the man at this hour on a Saturday. It was his usual day off for one thing and it followed the _‘Friday Night Madness’_ at the bar. It got busier on Friday nights and didn’t let up till closing hour. Henry had the habit of looking a bit harried and frazzled at the edges on those nights. 

Not that the customers could tell, mind. It was all in the faint lines of tension bracketing the corner of his mouth. It was the _‘smile, for the customers’_ expression that all people who worked in public services learned to wear, which became a touch more strained. No, it wasn’t obvious but Walt could see those things. 

Forty hours a week it was his job to notice small details -- after a while he stopped turning it off when he clocked out. So, he noticed things, sometimes, that others didn't. And he’d always noticed them about Henry in particular. 

Walt flicked his eyes to the pot still quietly bubbling, but not quite boiling. 

Maybe it was true -- a watched pot really didn’t boil. 

Walt looked at the clock, one of the few things he had in the spartan decoration of the cabin, and shook his head despairingly. Another night's sleep wasted as his brain turned itself inside out with decisions made and unmade.

It wasn’t much to look at but It had been a gift so he had held on to it over the years and he was glad of it now. It was a comfort to have a tangible link to the past, something he could look back at and know, it had been real once upon a time. Not some dream fever.

He looked over at the clock and his blood rushed south, his mouth went dry, and he couldn’t help but grin as he remembered the parts that were him and Henry, tearing off clothes, and crashing together with the force of a burgeoning storm.

His blood warmed as the memory wrapped itself around himself in technicolor detail in the way of an old lover's return. 

It was funny, how objects could encapsulate moments. Little nick-knacks that became dream-catchers stuffed full of forgotten moments. He’d honestly forgotten about that night until that second. Walt had only been late that one time, _not really_ but Walt refused to accept those other incidents, and Henry never let him forget it. Hence, the clock he still had sitting on a bedside table. It was equipped with a radio and alarm he never used. 

Walt smiled, a small private thing that softened the hard line of his face, as he willingly fell backward in time. 

Cady had turned twenty one and decided to celebrate by having a party and her first alcoholic drink at the _Red Pony_. Walt knew Henry had secretly been pleased with her decision even if he’d tried to convince her to go out to some swanky, high end bar the next county over but Cady would have none of that. 

Henry had shook his head, folding his arms across his chest.

Walt might have been staring, a little, but he’d been wearing something blue. Henry looked good in blue. And black.

“Come on, you cannot really want to have it here? Would you not prefer somewhere with more kids your age to party with? You know Walt will try to make it, but he might not be able to, Cady.”

She had smiled wider, shrugging her shoulder. “I know that Henry! But this is your bar, the _Red Pony_! C’mon, please, please, please?”

Henry had relented, of course he had, he always did for Walt’s daughter.

“It is up to you, birthday girl. If you want to have it here then here it will be.” 

Cady had squealed with enough pitch to make both men wince.

Her green eyes sparkling she lunged forward, latching onto Henry who caught hold of her with a _oo-mph_ of surprise.

“Alright, alright,” Henry said, once she had released him, “I will have to see if I can make this place respectable enough for the Sheriff’s daughter.”

Walt had laughed, a deep rumble that rolled up from his belly. “That might be a tall order. This place of yours is many things Henry, but I’m not sure _‘respectable’_ can be one of ‘em.”

Henry’s look had been positively waspish. “Why is it that I get the feeling you are not talking about my _bar_?”

Walt had grinned, threw back his drink and tugged a still beaming Cady under his shoulder. “Because, you’re a smart man.” 

Henry had been right, however, about Walt not being able to make it. Walt would hear about it the next weekend when he caught a break from work, he and Cady having decided on breakfast at the _Busy Bee_. 

Walt didn’t recall what she’d said, exactly, but her hair had been pulled back in a no-nonsense pony-tail. It was apt, her flame-red hair swishing as she talked, fast and excited even in the re-telling. No, he couldn’t place what all she’d said, only that it had been a lot and she had glowed with quiet happiness. It had pleased him more than she’d ever know, just sitting there quietly listening to her babble of words. 

His daughter was happy, what more could a father hope for? A career, a family someday, maybe. But Cady had time to figure those things out. Right then she had been living her life to its fullest and he couldn’t be prouder. 

Walt figured some part of him should have been upset Cady hadn’t even missed him all that much on her twenty-first birthday but he wasn’t. Henry, who was so much _better_ than him at these things, made sure his daughter had a good - _clean_ \- night out on the town. 

He was a lucky man, in that moment he’d known it more than ever. 

He had tried to make it to her shindig but a shoot out, a nicked shoulder, and sudden downpour had conspired against him.

Walt didn’t make it to the bar until all the guests including the birthday girl had shuffled home. Instead of a group of rowdy college students looking to get drunk and dance with any willing body in their immediate vicinity Walt had gotten a private party of his own, upstairs in a too small bed. It had squeaked, a lot, that night. 

And _later_ the pointed gift of a watch. 

Cady, who was so often her Godfather's co-conspirator, had bought the little time-keeper for him as a Christmas present, that, and an antique silver money-clip he couldn't bring himself to use. It went without saying, he knew who had _really_ suggested the clock. 

His line of work, Walt figured he’d either lose the clip, or it would end up with a perp. No, that he kept home. Safely displayed on a bookshelf holding onto a few folds of notes he’d collected over the years, a few from Martha, Henry, and a sentimental _‘I love you, Daddy!’_ from twelve-year old Cady.

Things that only had value to him and on one else ever needed to know he cherished as much as his _Dickinson_ , _Donne_ , or _Whitman_ books. 

_It had been a hell of a night,_ Walt thought stuck in a daze of memory. The passage of time had dimmed the raw edges of it but he can still feel the heady rush of adrenaline shooting through his system when he and then-Sheriff Lucien had been boxed in at the _Two Creek Ranch_.

Not exactly the _OK corral_ , but close enough to it back then. 

He’d enjoyed the thrill a lot more those days. 

Being young and stupid was a curse only time cured. 

Lucien had known about Cady’s shindig and sent him home to make apologies but Cady hadn’t been there to greet him.

His blood still singing from action he’d blown into the bar looking every inch the cowboy tumbling off the streets, dirt on his knees and a thin line of blood running from ear to cheek -- he’d known it, too.

Henry had looked him up and down, grinning. “Everyone else has gone home.”

Walt hadn’t needed a clearer invitation than that. Hands on his body lead to kisses that stole his breath and the white-out rapture of really good sex. Floating in a blissed out cloud of satisfaction Walt had looked over at Henry stretched out asleep beside him, warm, because Henry was always so damn _warm_ , and been so punch-drunk in love that it hurt.

He hadn’t said it, but he had stayed the whole night, and received one hell of a pleasant wake-up call...

Staring into the dark, waiting for the coffee to percolate, Walt scrubbed a hand over his face missing the memory as it drew farther and farther away. He also remembered what he thought later. Staring up at the ceiling that night, still trying to catch his breath, feeling sad that Sheriff Lucien had nothing waiting for him at home but his writing and his bourbon. 

On a bright Sunday afternoon, while Walt and _them_ were still new and freshly blooming, Lucien would turn to him as they walked down the street to the _Busy Bee_ for lunch. His eyes twinkling with mischief he’d turned to Walt and said, “ _Son,_ _some men get it all, and some don’t. Don’t you waste it, you lucky son of a bitch.”_

Walt didn't know what he’d thought at the time, besides the hearty _“Oh, fuck”_ that he kept circling back to. It had probably shown as clear as a black printed newspaper headline on his face in those days but Lucien had said nothing more on the topic. All Walt remembered was that he’d been scared shitless, still trying to believe that the family he’d cobbled together was really his for keeps. 

Time had given him clarity. Walt suspects he understood what the old man was getting at now, what neither one of them would have said because a man's love life was a private affair. 

He knew why Lucien’s words had left him treading shaky ground. He’d be staring at Martha and Henry who were leaning into one another, arm in arm, as they walked down the street across from Walt. There was nothing significant about the moment, this was not unusual. They had become fast friends -- taken to one another like the sun to the moon, it had been more than Walt had ever dared to hope. 

Henry and Martha would often - privately- commiserate over being tied to a workaholic lawman, loudly at the cabin where only Walt could hear and blush and stammer only for them to turn to one another and shush him with touching, kissing, and….well...He didn’t mind their complaints terribly when that was the welcome back he received. 

Walt remembered stopping on the sidewalk for a second, just to admire them, the light catching off raven’s-wing black and cornflower-gold strands as they talked, the bright animation on their faces as they spoke. 

Conspiring from the furtive looks they would shoot in Walt's direction. They had looked up at him as one unit and waved.

Walt had shuffled his feet, his face turning beet red as he waved back. He didn’t understand at the time why he’d been so thrown off.

Lucien had slapped him on the back laughing at some private joke he didn’t feel like letting him in on. “You’re being summoned. Go on, get! I don’t want to see your ugly mug until Monday, you hear?” 

_Yeah. I’d been summoned alright. But no man had gone more willingly than Deputy Walt Longmire. Those had been some good times,_ Walt thought side eyeing the coffee pot as it began to boil. 

The phone rang in the living room sounding like a Dark-Eyed Junco trilling at him for encroaching on his nest. 

Walt huffed, blinking the sleep-crust from his eyes, feeling sufficiently indolent from lack of sleep. It was no good living in memory, but sometimes it helped ease the ache in the absence of warmth pressed to his side, or gold hair haloed on his pillow. He missed the makeup in his cabinet, the fancy lavender smelling soap, and foreign tea’s stacked in sparse cabinets. He missed the sweaty tangle of limbs, breathless from lovemaking. Walt missed when it was him and _them_. 

Sleep came hard some nights, he tossed and turned for hours before his unquiet mind allowed him to slip into the sweet nothingness of dreams. Over time he’d found that good dreams hurt worse than nightmares of blood, guts and entrails.

When he dreamed of _them_ his insides felt ripped to shreds, bleeding from unseen wounds. If there was no rest for the wicked and no peace for the good, what was the Goddamn point? Good, bad, they were all of them stuck howling at the same moon on restless nights. It didn’t help that he had the power to change part of it, all he had to do was pick up the phone, that’s it. 

_Can I come over?_ He’d lost track of how many times he wanted to pick up the phone and ask. That’s all he would have to say. No _hello, how are you, what’s new friend_ , just Walt quietly begging for a place to get out of the cold. To be less alone when the world got to feeling too big for a small town sheriff. That’s it. All he needed to say and Henry would unlock the door, give him the key, and keep him warm for the night. 

Henry was good like that, good to _Walt_ like that. He would let him in.

And then, in the morning his face still soft in the afterglow of making love he’d quietly let Walt go when the morning sun crested the sky. If that’s what he needed, Henry would give it. 

Henry would not shut that door, not to his bed and not to his home. He hadn’t done so in 37 years, Walt could stake his life on that door being open. Even if he thought, maybe, he didn’t deserve it. 

Walt stalked over to the phone, shivering as he left the relative heat put off by the stove. He had not needed light to make his coffee instead leaving the kitchen in shadowy darkness. His choice came back to bite him on the ass when his big toe met the table with a slap.

Walt cringed, cursing animatedly. He hopped the rest of the way to the light-switch feeling six different kinds of a fool and prayed nothing was broken. He could see the headline now _‘Sheriff of Absaroka County Walter Longmire admitted to Good Samaritan Hospital. Injury: Broken big-toe.’_ Local news rags would eat that shit up and destroy his hard-ass reputation in the process.

In Walt’s opinion they were dangerous things in the morning, corners. He was convinced it was a worldwide phenomenon, a morning ritual epidemic he’d once said. He cannot remember who he’d shared his thoughts with, Martha or Henry? He didn’t know. It was equally likely he’d bitched to them both and they would have laughed at him for it. 

Martha would have softened the sting by brushing his hair back behind his ear and kissing him on the mouth. God, he’d loved that woman. 

Henry would have laughed and maybe, if he was lucky, made up for it in other ways when they were alone together in the dark. Maybe it would be kissing, or fucking, or both. But Walt’d never known until it happened and he was pulled along in the undertow that was Henry Standing Bear. 

Walt was always willing to get tossed about in the face of his twin passions, Henry and Martha. The fixed points around which he had spent the better part of his life happily orbiting once upon a time. Walt fiercely missed those halcyon days with a strength that left half-healed wounds aching for want of more.

Martha, bless her, was gone but he and Henry were still here, still picking up the pieces of one another with their bare hands.

Cutting themselves down to bone on sharp edges, ragged hurts that left them bloodied. But still trying. 

Once upon a time, two had been three. 

Walt indulged himself for a half-second in the _warm, wanted, and welcome,_ feeling that he had been the epicenter of what felt like a lifetime ago. He shook it loose. It hurt too much to grasp what had long since crumbled to ash. Nothing in this world was meant to last forever. All that could be promised was the moment that existed between hello and goodbye. 

Walt paused, thinking of _Maugham_ and wonders. Was he being foolish for not taking happiness where he can find it, in what he still has left?

Walt froze with his hand on the phone. 

After Martha died it had felt wrong to let himself feel anything good. 

Because of what they had, him and _them_ , that had included Henry. It hadn't been either right or wrong. 

It had just been what he’d had to do, floundering in an ocean of black grief. 

Henry had tried. 

Lord, he’d done more than anyone could have expected. Walt knew he had. It had been Walt who refused to take the rope he was being thrown -- he’d almost drowned but that was on him not Henry. 

No, Henry had worn his sadness like armor, a badge of honor in memory of the woman they had _both_ loved. 

Walt had needed space then and Henry had given it without ever letting Walt get so far adrift that he couldn't find his way back. 

_She would have been proud,_ Walt thought to himself. Henry had been the steady rock that remained planted in the middle of the wild river that Walt’s grief had made of him. The river could run past, through, and over the rock but it could not uproot it. 

Henry gave him time but he had not allowed to wallow alone in the dark. 

Take out arrived unasked for, empty beer cans vanished, and on occasion they ate dinner together. Henry had not needed an invitation to do this, he had just done it in silent, unspoken understanding. 

Martha would have boxed Walt’s ears for this. It startled a chuckle out of him, imagining her face, stern and unimpressed, her beautiful heart-shaped face flush with anger as she pulled herself up to her full height of five feet and two inches. She never let Walt forget those two inches, either. She’d be kind, too. She would touch his face as she whispered in his ear _‘Don’t forget, he’s hurting too, dear.’_

But he had, because no one else had reminded him. No one else had known. 

Martha had loved Henry, too. 

“This is Walt,” he said, grabbing the phone on the fifth ring. 

“I should hope so, it is your phone,” Vic snapped from the other end. 

Walt imagined her with her slouched in his chair with her boots up on his mahogany desk as she spoke. He was going to have to talk to her about that someday, she was leaving boot-scuffs on the mahogany wood that will be hard to fix. 

“Anyways, Hugh Moore called in a prowler and since he lives in your neck of the woods it would be faster sending you than for me to haul ass over there to see what shadow he’s jumping at tonight. It was trash-pandas last time you know," she explained as though the last eight words out of her mouth made perfect and logical sense.

Walt hummed absently and made a mental note to ask Henry what 'trash-pandas' was supposed to mean. Henry knew all that millennial, new-age talk, it came with the territory of running a bar. 

The last time the English language had taken an ineffable turn had been with internet 'memes', back in '06. Sixteen year old Janet O'Malley had chased Donny Gilman, age seventeen, down front street with her little-league bat for posting a picture of her with a rude message on the internet that had gone viral.

Walt missed the days when viral meant someone had caught a nasty STD, or a case of the claps.

It had been the talk of the town alright, but when the dust settled all anyone remembered was five-foot-nothing Janet in her pretty yellow sundress, scaring the hell out of the Gilman boy.

Folk still laughed about that incident at the _Half-Moon Cafe._

“Okay,” Walt said. “I’ll head over now.”

“Okay.”

The line went dead. Walt looked at the phone, his lip ticked-up in a faint smile as he made his coffee and threw on some clean clothes. Burrowing into his coat more than usual he started up the _Bronco_ and headed out to Old Moore’s cabin. 

Walts' bear dream and the words itching at his throat became a distant afterthought, less and less vivid with each mile he drove. Walt hummed tapping his fingers on the wheel to a bluesy country tune. It was time to get to work and Vic was only half right. Old Moore’s cabin wasn’t near _anyone's_ neck of the woods but it was a hell of a view - open plains a few miles from the Buffalo Horn mountain range which would be capped with white snow. He had the heat on cranked up all the way, the proof was fogging the windshield, making him squint to see the rain-slick roadway and black ice but it still wasn’t enough. Walt couldn't get warm; perpetual chill had set up shop and it wouldn’t budge. 

Spotting the Moore’s driveway Walt turned off the main road bracketed by rows and rows of winter-bare Elm trees. His high beams lit up the front porch and huge bay windows of the cabin but there was nothing exciting to see so he turned off the lights and got out to inspect the residence while Mr. Moore hunched against the wind on his colorful, floral welcome mat. Walt took his time with a slow and methodical examination of the grounds same as he would for any other prowler call checking for footprints or tire-tracks that didn’t belong to Moore’s blue _Ford_ and walked the perimeter of the house, just to be thorough.

Lots of things happened out in the woods at night and some of them were bad. A good man might fear the dark, but a bad man? He was always bravest when he was cloaked in absolute darkness - removed from light, removed from societal inhibition.

_No,_ Walt thought. He would do this right. 

His flashlight caught reflected eye-shine from a family of raccoons peering at him from the forest line and he sighed. Vic was right. Again. Sometimes the usual suspects really were the guilty party and shadows in the yard were just shadows, not that he’d be telling that to Mr. Moore who was watching from his porch bundled up in a wool parka and a red-checkered scarf as he waited to hear what Walt had to say. 

Walt joined him, stepping up on the porch which provided some cover from the drizzle. His exhaled breath turned into a plume of fog-mist in the pre-dawn hours and he wished he had something hot to warm the chill creeping into his bones. 

“Well, what was it?” Moore asked. 

“Racoons,” Walt explained. “You can tell Madeline there’s nothing to be concerned about.” 

Moore was a nervously dis-positioned man and it showed in the way his jaw ticked, hands fidgeting in his buckskin gloves. He was also predisposed to watching horror flicks before going to bed and that combined with his raccoon visitors resulted in frequent calls to the station.

Walt figured it was better that he called, even when it was nothing, rather than not call when someday it might be something.

Even if it was a pain in the ass. 

Mrs. Moore was quite unlike her husband in that respect and they both knew it. Madeline was more likely to blow a hole in an intruder and then call the station to report it but Walt let the man keep his pride as it was something of a sore subject between the couple. It would cost Walt nothing to soften the sting but it also served to keep a citizen happy and loyal for when voting season came calling. 

Madeline studied them from the open door - as though invocation of her name made her appear. 

She was a refined woman and wore her age well with laugh-lines crinkling at the corner of her Irish green eyes and her mouth turned up in a cupids-bow half-smile. Walt had always thought it gave her a secretive _Mona Lisa_ air.

Nearing sixty-three she had chosen to retain her natural grey, the ghost glow of moonlight catching at her silver plaited hair falling down her shoulder turned it to quicksilver. 

“Walter? Did Mr. Moore drag you out of your bed again? Poor dear, I bet a cup of coffee would do you good,” Madeline said already motioning for him to follow her inside. “It’s no trouble to put on a pot.”

“I’ll have to take a rain-check, Madeline. You take care now,” he said and tipped the brim of his stetson politely. 

“Thanks for coming out, Walt, we’ve had more travelers down this way than usual and it makes me jumpy. But, I suppose you know that already,” Moore said and if he was shuffling further back into his doorway like an awkward schoolboy who knew he’d get a paddling when the door closes Walt was wise enough not to comment. 

People only nagged if they cared. It was when that stopped that a person knew they had either messed up beyond forgiving or else there wasn’t anyone around to fuss over the mundane. In Walt's books Mr. Moore was a lucky man. 

“Just doing my job,” Walt replied, stepping off the porch and shuffling back to the Bronco. Sitting in the cab he cranked up the heat to thaw out the deep-freeze gnawing at his bones. This cold clinging to him felt unnatural; he hasn’t been able to shake it or feel proper warmth since that strange dream. 

Maybe he would swing by the _Red Pony_ before work. He’d order up his morning favorite a Breakfast Special of hash and hot-cakes and see if some friendly palavering couldn't stop Jack Frost nipping at his heels. Just imagining the hot coffee and cozy warmth of his favorite Bar & Cafe was enough to suffuse Walt with warm glowy feelings of contentment. 

It had been three weeks. Walt figures that was how long it’d been since he’d done more than see the bar, or Henry, in passing. He’s not avoiding his friend, he’s just been busy of late. It has nothing to do with the fact that he fell back into a familiar, old habit. _Nothing._

Didn’t matter that it had been the best night he'd had in a long while.

Best sex, too.

Crime didn’t stop just because the sheriff was, maybe, having himself a bit of an existential crisis over falling into bed with his best friend. _Again_. 

Crime never slept. There had already been two robberies and one attempted kidnapping of a local waitress, Mandy Hall. She’d had mace and a pair of pipes that could wake the dead. She screamed so loudly Half-Deaf Joe the barber came running out of _Beards and Shears_ armed with his .38 Smith & Wesson and ready to be Mandy Halls’ white knight in plainclothes.

The would-be abductor had fled and the trail went cold fast without witnesses or identifying marks beyond the grey _Wolverines, West Yellowstone High_ sweater the suspect had been wearing and that he’d been Caucasian with brown hair. Walt figured that placed the suspect in the early to late twenties range and he either attended _West Yellowstone High_ or he’d picked up the clothes somewhere else but Walt would place bets that the sweater belonged to the suspect. 

The attack on Mandy Hall had been sloppy, unplanned and he’d escaped by running behind the shop where he’d stowed his vehicle. Only way to secure her compliance without a weapon would have been a fire-man hold. 

Impractical in such an open space as main street. 

Walt had looked at grainy low quality footage at lousy angles until his eyes itched and his ass was numb in his chair trying to find his suspect but he hadn't been able to close the distance -- he hated it. He kept waiting for the call to come in, the one that said someone else's _daughter, sister, mother_ had disappeared and he could have stopped it. He was doing everything he could but there were some cases where it just wasn’t enough no matter what. 

Walt had learned a long time ago to take the win’s and the losses as they came.

Not everybody was going to come home alive. That was just the job.

Still, guilt hung around his neck like the _Ancient Mariner’s_ albatross.

Walt pulled into his destination and sat in the cab for a moment, glaring at the neon ‘closed’ sign disrupting his plans for a little conversation and good food. His glowy sentiments from earlier faded into a moody, dark spiral. _Should he have called ahead?_ He could have. But then, he’d never felt the need to do so before. Deciding not to jump the gun Walt got out slamming the cab door with a _thwack_ , fishing out his spare key with hands that had gone numb he opened the door and let himself into the _Red Pony_.

He passed chairs neatly stacked on top of tables and took the stairs in twos fully prepared to be faced with a very irate bear of the real and not-a-dream sort when he threw open the door to Henry's private room above the bar. The apology on his lips remained unspoken as he took in the empty space: an unmade bed, and thin layering of dust. 

Henry had not been here for some time.

He is not entirely sure if he’s relieved or upset about that. What was he going to say? Did he need to say anything at all? Walt sighed, rubbing at his temples in frustration. _Yeah, at least a ‘sorry for being a dick’, would be alright,_ Walt thought as he frowned taking in the room, the new book on the desk that hadn’t been there before, the sprig of dried sage on the small table Henry used for eating.

He hated that there had been changes, small details, that were unfamiliar. When had Henry started reading Ian Hacking’s _The Social Construct of What?_ Walt didn’t know and it bothered him more than he wanted to admit that he didn’t have an answer. Had he been gone that long? He didn’t think he had, but he’d been wrong before.

“Hey, is the boss back?” a woman asked. Walt swung around to face her, the surprise must have been clear on his face because she laughed, a light airy sound that was meant to set him at ease. It did. Now that he was looking properly he recognized her face from his frequent visits. 

She had been the pretty, dark eyed, and dark haired woman in the background waiting tables and stacking chairs at closing. 

“Sorry. I did not mean to startle you Sheriff. I’m Amy White Feather. On the rare occasion that Henry leaves town I am in charge. It’s a pain, but the money is good,” Amy said leaning around his bulky frame to glance into the empty room.

Walt could see there was something more she wanted to say. Concern dimmed the corners of her thin-lipped smile and frown lines beaded between the black arch of her brows.

“I didn’t even know he was gone” Walt replied, trying not to sound upset. 

It wasn’t his right. 

He had been the one to distance himself in the first place. 

Another regret he could add to the tally. Fuck, he’d gone about this all half-cocked and stupid thinking with his dick when he knew there were feelings on the line.

Amy White Feather crossed her arms defensively. “I called _the Rez_ after the first couple days, you know? But he was not there either.”

Henry was a grown man who could come and go as he pleased. 

He didn’t need Walt’s say-so. 

Walt tapped his foot to mask his irritation, his eyes wandering around the empty room. He might have expected plans to have at least been mentioned. But that was before, and he hadn’t been around had he? This was one, it was on him. 

Shutting the door to Henry’s room Walt backtracked down the stairs aware of Amy White Feather’s dainty, light steps close at his back. 

Walt crossed his arms and surveyed the building but nothing jumped out at him, no new scuff marks, bullet holes, or signs of any struggles that would indicate a problem that required a sheriff's attention.

There was nothing tangible to explain this feeling he had. It was like being dumped in tar with ants crawling all over his body, something was wrong and he knew it in his gut.

But there wasn’t a single rational explanation he could thumb his finger at, either. 

He didn’t like this second roadblock.

If Henry wasn’t here and he wasn’t at _the_ _Rez_ then where was he? 

Unease sat like a stone in Walt's gullet because now he felt the world might as well be hanging a sign post that read: _‘Talk To Henry Standing Bear.’_

And karma, the conniving bitch, was laughing at him now for all shit he hadn’t said and done. _‘To late, now’_ she was cackling as the storm brewed on the horizon. _Oh fuck you,_ Walt thought mulishly. This wasn’t over, not by a long shot.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walt Longmire is trying to piece together what happened three weeks ago when Henry seems to have disappeared from outside the Red Pony.

_Present Day:_

Amy White Feather knew more than she was telling.

Walt couldn't figure if it was because of guilt by association or something else. He didn’t like to think she had anything to do with Henry’s sudden sojourn to places-unknown but he couldn't rule out the possibility either. It wouldn’t do her any good, offing her boss. From what he understood, it was fair pay working at the _Red Pony_ . She had more to lose if ownership changed than if it remained with Henry. He needed to make a living of his own, sure, but Henry gave shifts to those who needed it badly so long as they put in the hours and weren’t dealing or hooking from his establishment.

_No, of all people Amy White Feather has the least to gain if things went south,_ Walt thought to himself. She might even be out a job seeing as Walt didn’t know what would happen with the bar if Henry disappeared for an inordinate length of time. Walt cut that train of thought off at the pass. It didn’t matter what plans were in place. He wouldn’t let it get to that point. If Henry was just out of reach or out of the county he’d blow back into town wondering what all the fuss was about and no one would be happier than Walt _if_ that was the case, but if he really was missing Walt would do what had to be done to find him. He wasn’t about to lose the only _best friend_ he had.

He didn’t think his heart could take that kind of strain. _Cady might never forgive me if anything happened and she found out...I could have done more,_ Walt thought to himself. There was a closeness there that he couldn’t beat. 

He was dad, sure. But Henry, somehow he encapsulated the extended family Cady never got to have. _Confidante, friend, the fun one…Crazy uncle,_ Walter preferred but Martha had vetoed that title with prejudice. Walt had contested this point and had been outvoted.

Henry was all that, rolled into one tall 167 pound man who frequently let the sheriff’s pint-sized daughter run roughshod all over him _. ‘It would appear I am a sucker for the Longmire smile, did you know?’_ Henry had said to Walt, speaking loud enough that little Cady could overhear where she was playing on her pink and purple striped swing set, her nose wrinkling as she grinned, shooting them a gap-toothed smile.

Hell, his friend knew about Cady’s first boyfriend before he had. Not because he clued it together, no, because she had _told_ him. Walt had found it out because when he asked about a boy whose name kept popping up in conversation and she had turned beet red and started fiddling with her hair. 

Right now Amy White Feather was doing the exact same thing as Cady had done all those years ago. Fiddling with the charms on her bracelet and looking off to the left of his face when he tried to make eye contact. She had also moved to stand behind the bar, placing a solid object between herself and Walt. Both of these choices were classic handbook signs of evasion.

Walt could recognize them even if he were three sheets to the wind, experience from working the angles of a case and the fact that he had written the book on classic signs of evasion meant he knew what to look for and Amy was a flashing, red neon light.

Instinct was telling him to look closer.

He trusted it. “Amy you know something you’re not telling me.” He said stepping closer, bracing his arms against the bar so they were eye to eye. “Now, I need you to tell me what, exactly, that is because you won’t look me in the eye and you’ve been fidgeting since I got here. This tells me you’re either lying or evading.”

“If there is anything, anything at all that can clear up this matter right now you need to tell me, okay?” Walt said, observing her carefully as she bit her lip her head still ducked down, tension was making the lines of her shoulders very rigid. It occurred to him that maybe she was afraid. Which just raised a whole lot of new questions. Walt didn’t like a single one of them, either. His latent hope that this might be a simple matter of miscommunication was dwindling fast. 

Walt just watched the young woman, his gaze was not unkind. “A person doesn’t just up and disappear for no reason and I know you _know_ that. You don’t want anything bad to happen to Henry, do you? He was kind enough to give you this job while you got clean, kicked that habit -- I can tell. You’re not jumpy like you used to be, before.”

She twisted her hands together on the bar top and folded like a cheap lawn chair under Walt's gentle badgering with a teaspoon of guilt as the chaser. “I -- I do not know if it is something. I don't even know if they are connected but there was a man in here, a few hours before we, Henry and I, closed for the night.” 

She swallowed, the lovely tan of her face paling. “He hit on me, he hit on Sandra Little Creek, winked as Sam, made a show of throwing around big tips. That’s what got to me, really. He thought he could flash money and we would just, what? Follow a strange man out into a dark alley or empty parking lot?”

She laughed sharply, her hands squeezing into fists. “ _We_ know better.”

Walt heard the unspoken that lingered between what she said and what she didn’t have to. Not to him. There were some predators that thought pretty faced Indian girls were easy targets, between the long work hours of parents and the jurisdictional pissing matches between local law enforcement and Tribal Police they were not wrong either. Some predators, the worst kinds, knew how to use the law to get away with unspeakable deeds. Made his stomach turn thinking of their sick perversion of the justice system, which he had made it his life to uphold. 

Walt could see that this man had frightened the young woman, just speaking about him made her jumpy and tense, which made him a man Walt very much wanted to meet if he was going to be hanging around in his town. He liked to know the bad apples by sight; it served to make it easier to keep tabs on them that way. 

Amy White Feather shook her head and continued speaking, slow and precise as though she were exorcising a personal ghost in her retelling. “We were polite, you understand? But none of us liked this one, he, he was real fine, you know, but there was something too smooth. I didn’t trust it, I didn’t trust him. We see his kind sometimes, the snakes, with their fang hidden behind their smiles.” 

Amy White Feather looked up meeting Walt’s eyes directly, “That one was bad news, sheriff. He was very careful not to do anything we could throw him out for. He was real good at that.” 

Walt nodded as he took in everything Amy White Feather had said. Apparently the bar staff had been of one mind about this man. Now, what had Henry thought about him? It was unlikely Henry would have out and out said anything to the staff. He would have tried to make sure everything ran smoothly, without unnecessary disturbances. Even when they _weren’t_ in the middle of a confusing, on again off again, _Cold War_ Henry would not call _the sheriff_ to break up small-scale bar fights.

Walt blew out a breath, maybe Branch was right. He needed to get around to hiring on some more assistance. _Absaroka isn’t getting any smaller, that’s for damn sure,_ Walt thought, growing nostalgic for the days when two deputies were enough to keep the order. _Gotta stop living in the past,_ Walt chastised. People were depending on him keeping his head on straight and his emotions in check. 

Henry was depending on him. Walt fingered the note stuck in his pocket, wanting to take it out and turn it over in his hands, examine it again as though it was the Holy Grail. It was the last thing Henry wrote before he disappeared. It was Walt’s last tangible link to his friend. Walt stood there, listening, and tried not to wonder if the yellow scrap of paper stuffed in his pocket smelled like the pages of an old book, or the remnants of alcohol fumes. 

Fuck. He needed to get it together -- fast. 

“Henry did not _say_ anything, I can tell that’s what you’re wondering. Henry just...let his drink run dry, was not as friendly as is with, say, Bob, or other local customers.” Amy White Feather shrugged her shoulder flicking her hair behind her ear. “In the end, he did not have to do anything at all. I was so relieved when that man left, all on his own.”

Walt frowned, “Then why did you tell me about him, if nothing happened?” 

Amy White Feather frowned right back, hard and unimpressed. “Because, there were two customers, two white men, that caused a stir right before Henry disappeared and that was the first one. And it is good to remember that his type is out there, waiting.” 

Walt studied her carefully and it was clear to see she meant it, every single word. This man had rattled her right down to her core, that was clear enough. Walt wished he had a name and a face to pin to this man that had scared the girls. He thought he should have it, even if it was unrelated to his search for Henry. They were a hard bunch to frighten, he’d seen Amy White Feather sucker punch a handsy drunk who thought he’d cop a feel up her knee high green skirt. Being a gentleman Walt had assisted the drunk from the bar. And Sandra Little Creek had eyes as sharp as her tongue, more than one ass-hole drunk had been reduced to two inches tall. One had even come crawling back genuinely apologetic for his behavior.

That had been George Tillman. Walt scratched his head, now that he thought about it -- they were happily married last June, weren’t they? Had themselves a little place out on _the Rez_. 

Walt refocused his questioning on Amy White Feather. “Alright, you said first, meaning there was a second customer that has you concerned in light of recent events?”

She nodded, her sleek, dark hair bobbing. “It is nothing, I think. But there was some trouble with another man. This -- this time it might have been my fault.” She paused crossing her arms in front of her chest defensively. 

Walt said nothing letting her take a moment to gather her thoughts. Maybe it had been her fault, maybe not he wouldn’t know until he had gotten the whole story about the night before Henry disappeared. 

Thinking of the first man at all made Walt cringe. He always tried to remain unbiased but the man sounded like a low-key psychopath from the way Amy White Feather had talked. Or a character from a serial killer novel.

“There was a customer here” she explained, “he spoke with the other man, briefly as he left. Maybe they knew each other? He seemed decent. He was handsome, for a white boy so I let him buy me a few drinks.”

She paused, fiddling with her charms again, twirling the tiny silver dog trinket around like a little talisman. It worked well enough because after that she began speaking without needing to be prodded. Her expression remained withdrawn, blanketed by a wall of regret. 

Walt wished there was something he could say that would make her feel better but society had done its work too well. A girl smiled at a boy, and the boy followed the girl to her car and assaulted her. Whose fault was it? 

Walt cannot count how many times he had heard the implied _‘she shouldn’t have smiled,’_ or _‘she shouldn’t have been dressed like that’_ when male law enforcement officers spoke of rape victims. Why couldn't people ask instead, why did he think he had the right? Walt said nothing of this to the young woman. He could do a lot by wearing a badge but fixing societal perception was beyond his scope. 

All Walt could offer was respectful silence and a listening ear.

Amy White Feather leaned against the bar, exhaling with a _pfft_ sound as she gesulated with her hands. “He was handsome, okay? I let him buy me a few drinks. Don’t give me that look, sheriff. I know I’m not supposed to when I’m on the clock but -- but I did. Just the once, what can it hurt I thought?”

She paced the floor behind the bar like a caged tiger, pent up frustration seeping off of her. Her eyes flashing, dark and cutting. “I accepted a few drinks, so what? I finished my shift and this guy came onto me, wanted me to go off with him but I said no. Because, duh, not stupid.” 

“He did not like that,” she said and when her eyes flicked up they were filled with bitter indignation. “He called me a dirty, whoring squaw right here in the bar and one one said a damn thing about it, just kept drinking and eating like I was invisible.” 

Walt inclined his head, leaning into her as she spoke. “I have a hard time believing Henry let that pass.” 

She laughed, bell soft and pretty as a Nightingale. “So you _do_ know Henry Standing Bear then,” she said, sleek hair waving in a dark banner as she shook her head. 

Amy White Feather smirked. “Yeah. Henry told him to get the fuck out of his bar. I knew the gig, working at a bar, wandering hands, and the occasional crass remarks. It’s fine, but this crossed the line. Colonial oppression, poverty, these things turned the Algonquian word ‘squaw’ into something with -- with bad connotations, ‘ _cheap brown whore.’_ So, you can see why I was not thrilled, why Henry was not thrilled. Anyways, I remember Sam came out from the back, waiting to see if there would be trouble. He was going to back up Henry, if needed. I remember how tense he was, waiting to see what would happen.”

Walt could see how the way she held herself changed, her head coming up, chin tipped up in defiance. There was pride gleaming in her eyes too. “People forget, Henry’s pretty good at managing things just fine on his own. He did not need Sam -- but it was nice of him to make an appearance I suppose.” 

Walt cocked an eyebrow. “Sam and Henry don’t get along?”

Amy White Feather shrugged, “Eh, you know how it is? They are okay. Tolerate each other. But talk like that, you know? Remind us we’re all one, in the end. It’s _us_ and them sometimes. So, Sam came, but he did not need to.”

“The look on this guy's face when he was told to leave...it changed. Terrible as this is I remember how glad I was that he wasn’t looking at _me._ ” Amy White Feather crossed her arms over her ample chest, accenting the sharp plunge of her red v-neck sweater. “I wanted to call you but Henry said not to, that he would take care of it -- and he did.”

Walt huffed, shaking his head. “Yeah, well, Henry isn’t always right, and he sure isn’t the law.”

“How exactly did Henry get this man to leave?” Walt asked, trying to gauge how pissed off the offending man had to have been. Enough to come back later with bad intentions?

The young woman shrugged one shoulder. “They got into a short lived fist fight.” She made a soft _humm_ sound in the back of her throat, her brows furrowing. “Now that I think about it, he leaned in close and said something to Henry. I couldn't hear what but I could tell that Henry did not appreciate it -- Henry clocked him good. He was going to have a black eye to remember him by in the morning, that’s for sure!”

Walt groaned, “Dammit, Henry.” 

Army White Feather scowled indignantly. “Hey, he had it coming.”

_And here we are, Henry missing, now presumed...what kidnapped? Dammit Henry. If he’d just picked up the phone,_ Walt thought before he stopped abruptly. _‘Hypocrite,’_ his brain whispered, and he couldn't even offer token protest.

The first customer sounded shady as hell but the second man had engaged with Henry on a personal level. A fist fight was very up close and personal. He would follow both leads and see where they lead. He didn’t have any choice. They were the only leads he had. 

“Did either of these men pay with a credit card?” Walt asked, feeling like slamming his hand down on the counter-top when she shook her head in refusal.

“Had you seen him here before the incident, the man who got in a fist fight with Henry?” Walt asked. 

Amy White Feather shook her head a dark blush heating her cheeks. “No I did not. I -- I think I would have noticed.”

“Right -- handsome. Okay. I’m going to need you to come by the station and speak to Hank Ellis to get a sketching of this customer.”

If they had a rendering of the man it would go a long way towards narrowing the suspect pool. He’d have Vic call in Hank. Illustrator for _The Absaroka Times_ who moonlighted as sketch artist for _Absaroka Police Department_ and town flirt who drew girls the same as honey to a bee with his old-timey Southern charm. 

“Sheriff Longmire? I would have said something sooner but Henry did leave a note. He micromanages this place you know? He has put his sweat and blood into this establishment. Leaving for so long... This is not like him.” 

The young woman's words broke Walt free of his internal monologue. 

“Yeah, it’s starting to look that way.”

Amy turned her back to him as she rummaged through the stack of papers beside the phone, plucking out a yellow sticky-note he hadn’t seen because he’d been in a rush to Henry’s private room above the bar. 

_Gone hunting in Wichita_

That was his friend's handwriting all right. The letters were small and quickly penned if the faint ink smudging was any indicator. The letters were spaced out, but not so as to be strange, and the letters blocky front being pressed hard into the paper. That was _not_ like Henry.

He always said, _‘what is the hurry’_ about these kinds of things. It didn’t tell Walt anything useful, nothing he hadn’t already suspected. Henry took his time when he bothered to write anything at all, his lettering, neat, spaced, and light.

Henry did _not_ press so deep the pen would be left half-poked through the paper.

Henry did _not_ dot his “i’s” in this manner.

Henry kept his “i” close, in what writing analysis’ would call the indicator of an _organized_ and _detail-orientated mind_ . It was clear and very legible, possibly because Henry ran a business and was used to signing legibly and frequently but it was also supposed to be an indicator of _confidence_ and comfort in _‘his own skin.’_ Walt may have looked into the science of it, once or twice. 

_Yeah, Henry signed this alright,_ Walt thought as he studied the small yellow sticky-note. Which meant it would be no good as evidence. The only prints on it would be his friends. Unwilling to throw it in the trash just yet Walt folded it up and stuck it into his pants pocket. 

Walt sat down abruptly as the full weight of the situation fell on him, he might as well have been kicked in the balls by a horse. He was glad for the wooden chair his ass ended up in because he could have just as easily been the floor. He was at least three weeks late catching a clue, had two suspicious men, one fistfight, a yellow note, and a phrase that may as well have been a blinking Morse code of _‘wrong.’_

_I’m at least three weeks late catching a clue, have two suspicious men, one fist fight, a yellow breadcrumb, and a phrase that might as well have been a blinked morse code of ‘wrong.’ Or, ‘Come find me, Sheriff Longmire.’_ Walt felt a pang in his chest, painful and constricting like a rattler wrapped around his insides, poised for striking. He was chasing a trail three weeks old. 

He knew the odds. 

_Fuck, Henry wrote that note, it was his last ditch hope -- it must have been. He knew, he knew hunting trips like this are something we do together by unspoken understanding. Always had, always will._ Walt loved Absaroka county but he couldn't claim he didn’t love those trips together more. It wasn’t always easy but he made time -- that’s what you did for the people that mattered.

Whatever was wrong between them, Walt knew it wasn’t so wrong that this would have changed. 

_Unless that has changed, too?_ Walt dismissed the thought as soon as it arrived. They talked, it wasn’t the same, underlying tension that wasn’t all made up of repressed desires lingered making things awkward sometimes, but they _talked_. 

There was no call for throwing out thirty-some-odd years of friendship.

The second problem with the note. Henry had _hated_ hunting in Wichita and the hate had been mutual seeing as how they had been all but run out of town like a pair of no account saddlebums. It happened sometimes and it always made Walt feel weird that people would look at his friend and see _just_ the color of his skin.

Not that it was a bad color so far as that went, Walt was kind of partial all told, but he was biased. 

He and Henry had taken a trip up that way to see about those feral hogs they’d read about in the papers but the real problems had been of the two-legged and racist kind.

_Henry would never go back to a place like that for no good reason at all, and Henry would never go -- leave like that on his own. That was their time, something Martha insisted on -- set in place early on. He wouldn’t...he wouldn’t..._ Walt bit his lip as memories tried to surge to the surface. Martha smiling, her face lit up from within with high-spirits at the cabin door all but throwing Walt out with his boots half tied. Henry leaned up against Walt’s _Bronco_ outside, waiting. 

Walt shook his head, focusing. Losing himself in the past wasn’t an option. Henry was in real trouble this time. Walt could feel it -- there was a storm coming and he was caught up in the middle of it. Walt could only hope it didn’t pass them over before he could get his bearings. 

Storms were always best faced with a friend and _that_ he’d never stopped being. 

Amy White Feather looked at him curiously, head canted to the side in what Walt considered a decidedly cattish manner. “Henry is a good friend of yours, isn’t he?”

Walt did not try to deny it. “He is the best friend I’ve got.” 

Her dainty, pointed face dipped once in recognition. “When you find him, sheriff? Tell him I want a raise.”

Walt took her words as they were intended. She did not say, _if_ , she said _when_ . There was a substantial difference between _if_ and _when_ and it was as wide and long as the _Rio Grande_. Amy White Feather was putting her trust in him to do his job and find Henry Standing Bear. Walt decided he had better get to it.

“Okay,” Walt said. drumming his fingers along the edge of the table. A chipped piece snagged on his skin and he winced, a thin line of blood welling to the surface. This wasn’t his first kidnapping, so why did he feel as wobbly as a newborn colt taking its first crack at running?

Maybe it had to do with that stone of unease he’d been hauling around town. It had just evolved from disquiet to a surety -- a boulder lodged in his chest, or a Dybbuk maybe. Whichever, a strong feeling of dread was settling now that the dust was clearing and he could see the lay of the land.

Intuition could prove a mighty powerful tool but he couldn’t run off half-cocked. If he wasted time spinning his wheels in the wrong direction those odds of a safe return would plummet by a high percentage. 

_I need more than instinct to go on, what I need is a trail,_ Walt thought, placing his hands flat on the table and rocking to his feet. Too damn bad it was the best tracker in the county he seemed to have lost. 

_A bear lost in the eye of a storm,_ Walt thought, recalling the strange dream he’d had last night and a shiver creeped its icy fingers down his spine which had nothing to do with climate. He didn’t need Ada Black Kettle to interpret what those disappearing tracks from his vision-dream meant for Henry. _It isn’t anything good, that’s for certain,_ Walt mused within the confines of his head where no one else could see how this was eating at him. 

He’d got up this morning believing that he had time to figure things out only to roll into town and discover he had been very mistaken. 

Walt had forgotten, again. Nothing in this life was promised. All he had was the moment that existed between hello and goodbye and they were finite, fragile parsecs that passed in the blink of an eye. He would have thought he’d have learned better by now; it only took a kick in the teeth as a rude reminder. 

Mouth pulled in a grim line Walt blew out of the bar leaving the saloon doors swinging wildly in his wake. He halted suddenly outside the entrance to the bar, head canted up to inspect the security camera Henry had installed in ‘09 when there had been a rash of local robberies. As the county sheriff he had suggested that the town was growing and it would only continue to do so and extra security measures were logical.

It was one of the few arguments he had won ten to one. Now, it would appear his badgering was going to pay off. 

Walt turned on his heel and stuck his head back inside through the door hollering for Amy White Feather. She came running to him, her pretty cheeks rosy with exertion, the silver charms at her wrist chiming softly.

Her expression was jittery as a June bug. “Sheriff?”

Walt pointed at the camera and the cut wires, his face set in a stamp of disapproval.

Walt observed as Amy’s mouth fell open in a little ‘O’ of surprise as she drew in quick, shallow breaths, her eyes darting up to where he was pointing and then back to him with startlement obvious in her wide eyed look. It was clear to Walt her shock was genuine and he mentally cut her loose as a potential suspect. 

“I take it you hadn’t noticed,” Walt said. 

“I -- I have not had a reason to check the security feed,” Amy admitted. “There have not been any problems lately. I will get you the footage.” 

The young woman disappeared into Henry's office and Walt could hear shifting papers and things being shuffled. She returned within minutes with the footage on a small black memory-stick. Walt took the device from her hands and left the bar for the second time, planning to review the feed from the laptop he kept in his office at the station. This, whatever this was, had involved some planning - not like Mandy Hall who had been a blitz attack of opportunity. Odds were good the camera had been cut prior to Henry’s abduction. Walt's missing person case had just become a kidnapping. 

Seated in the relative privacy of _the Bronco_ he slammed his hand down on the wheel hard enough that his hand stung from the force of the self-inflicted blows. He looked away for a minute, one Goddamn minute, and already the world was conspiring to take the last good thing he had going for him. 

It was a dickish thing to think. 

He was safe.

Henry was alone, God knew where. 

Walt had become complacent, forgetting one salient point. For as long as Walt’s known him Henry has been moving from one kind of trouble to another. “If I had just…” Walt muttered, before stopping. What could he have done? Sure, maybe he could have stopped this, whatever this was, at the door had he been here. But then, maybe not. It had happened, it was in the past and it was no use wishing things differently. 

It was time to regroup and move forward with the best play possible. 

Walt blew out a breath staring down at his hands - they were shaking a little. Minute tremors from the cocktail of pain, nerves, and lack of food catching up and biting him in the ass. That had been a stupid thing to do and he knew it because now Ruby was going to give him _the Look_ and ask what happened to his hand. He’d been blindsided, that’s what had happened and he didn’t much care for the feeling that it was, in part, his own damn fault. 

If anything happened to Henry because he was too distracted, too chicken shit to say what he wanted, or even pick up the fucking phone...that was going to be on him. Plain as the bruise he could feel purpling his skin. 

Walt gripped the wheel tight enough to turn his knuckles white. He figured there must have been signs he missed because he hadn’t been paying attention. It was no kind of excuse but he’d been to caught up in his own dealings, his job, and calculating the potential fall out from having had sex for the first time since Martha died. 

“Enough” Walt growled to himself, “enough.” 

It was time to lock down anything he might be feeling that was going to get in the way of his job. Finding his best friend had just become his first priority. The signs might have been present, the strange dreams he’d been having for weeks, the sleepless night tossing and turning as his brain conjured bears and wolves and endless, white snow, so much of it he woke up with his teeth chattering and the joins in his fingers aching so badly that when he tried to bend them they refused to comply. Or maybe that was only the natural result of poor heating in the cabin; it was hard to know for sure. He did know this, he hadn’t been paying attention to the _right_ details and if the spirit-world had been trying all along to send him a message? Well, dammit, he was listening _now._

“Three weeks,” Walt muttered, “three damn weeks to notice.”

He might need the spirits and any God who was listening to pull off this search and rescue. First thing they drummed into him when he was learning the ropes was that when working a kidnapping case the first forty-eight hours were crucial. Local authorities were notified of the missing person and detectives had to start working angles, theorizing why the person had disappeared. Uncovering the why could lead them to the _who_. The safety risk shot up at twenty four hours. The first few hours were crucial, that’s what they all said and it was true. 

Walt did the math and he didn’t care for the results. There were five-hundred and four hours in three weeks, which meant he was so far behind that his odds were really fucking bad. 

“He isn’t dead,” Walt said staring out his windshield, “Henry’s a tough son of a bitch.”

Henry wasn’t dead. Walt refused to consider that he was three weeks too late for this to be anything other than a search for remains. Without a body of proof he would look; he’d turn the town upside down until a lead fell loose if he had to. He had two suspects, one violent altercation, but still no solid answer for why Henry would have been kidnapped instead of just beaten up and left with bruises and a black eye in retaliation. Why would someone go to the trouble of a kidnapping? Most of Henry’s money was tied up in the bar profits and the suspect hadn’t even broken into the cashier till or tip jar. It didn’t make sense, he was missing something, he had a few pieces of the puzzle but not enough to be any use.

Walt nodded to himself, turned the key in the ignition and did what he had planned to do before this business at the _Red Pony_ cropped up. He was going to go to work at the station as he usually would on a Sunday morning. 

Ferguson was crammed into his chair flipping through paperwork when Walt arrived at the station and Vic was staring at papers of her own, her elegant blonde brows pinched in annoyance. She transferred that look to him as soon as he stepped through the door. Vic hated getting shot at as much as filing paperwork - they had that in common. 

She glanced up, her sharp cat-green eyes narrowing as she looked him over. “What the hell took you so long?”

She was visually checking him out for bullet holes, or other indicators to what had held him up, no doubt. He relieved her of her concern. 

“I caught a case and the trails running cold,” Walt said, “it’s Henry Standing Bear, it would appear he’s gone missing, the circumstances are looking very suspect.” 

“Oh no,” Ferguson said, rising from his chair fast enough that it creaked and groaned, skidding back a few paces. 

“Where do we start? What do we know?” Ferguson asked, the deep frown he wore adding a sternness to his baby-face. He was resolved but he also looked like he’d taken a bite out of a green sour patch.

Walt sympathized. Realizing the case you were working was about someone you knew always made things harder, feelings getting in the way and shit. But in a town this size and the limited resources available it wasn’t like handing it off was an option. Not that he would if he could. Not when it was about Henry. 

“This is what we know. A woman working at the _Red Pony_ , Amy White-Feather, was hassled by two customers about three weeks back and things got heated,” Walt said pacing as he turned over the facts in his head, “Instead of calling me, the sheriff, as he should have done, Henry forcibly evicted the second customer from his bar for using a racist slur on Amy White Feather.”

Walt rubbed his chin absently, his look far away. “This man, the one who called the young woman a _squaw_ is our prime suspect -- after being thrown out of the bar Henry’s apparently ‘left town’ for a sudden, unplanned hunting trip in Wichita,” Walt said, with air quotes. 

“And you don’t believe he left of his own free will” Ferg said, nodding his head as he followed Walt’s train of thinking. “You think this person came back and did something to Henry.”

‘Well, you tell me. What would you think Ferg, if someone disappeared, left their very profitable establishment in a tight spot, and hasn’t been heard from since in roughly three weeks. Also, uh, usually -- usually hunting trips are something we plan ahead for. Me and Henry. It is a little strange, him going off alone in this specific manner? No, that’s what really rubs me the wrong way about this.” 

Walt paused. “You tell me Ferg, am I jumping the gun here?”

Ferg nodded, his expression grave. “No, no, I think I’d get suspicious, too. I remember last fall you and Henry went down to...where was it?”

“Rock Springs,” Walt said, “it was a good trip.”

“Walt, do we even know what this suspect looks like?” Vic asked, coming to stand in front of Walt with her hands balled on her hips, head tilted back to meet him eye for eye. “And we’re sure this isn’t just a case of, oh, I don’t know? Miscommunication? He’s gone on business trips before, right?”

Walt dug out the yellow note and showed it to her. “This is Henry’s handwriting, and it says here he’s going to Wichita. I find that hard to believe, we went to Wichita once, didn’t much like it. Henry really is missing Vic, I need you both with me on this. As it is we’re already three weeks behind.” 

Walt turned a hard look on Vic and an inscrutable exchange passed between them in complete silence that had the deputy throwing up her hands in exasperated surrender.

“Fine, fine,” Vic said, “you need me to start up your laptop for that little flash drive you got there, or do you think you can handle it?”

“Amy White Feather is going to be here in twenty minutes. She had to lock up the bar before leaving,” Walt said, blowing past her questions without apology. He didn’t have time for trading barbs today.

Henry was missing and Walt was damned if he was going to let those tracks disappear on him in the real world. 

The tracks were fading with each delay. He couldn't afford any more slip-ups. Three weeks suddenly sounded like three months. Either way, it was a day, a minute, a second, too long. How ironic that only this morning he’d been so certain that was the one thing he did have on his side, time. 

“Vic, call in Hank Ellis and get him down here. He needs to have a sit down with Amy White-Feather.” Walt entered his office leaving the door open and stared out the little window overlooking the town watching two women hurry into the _Milton General Store_ an epiphany struck and he shouted for Ferg.

“Yeah?” Ferg said, poking his head inside. 

“Go ahead and call in Mandy Hall, too.” 

“Got it,” Ferg said, pausing half inside the threshold of Walt's office. “Walt...what are you thinking?”

“I don’t know,” Walt said, “that’s what I need to find out.”

Walt knew there was something he was missing and talking to the two potential kidnap victims would help him see the bigger picture. Amy White-Feather was accosted at _the Red Pony_ and Mandy Hall was approached outside _Bears & Shears. _In a county this size what were the chances that it wasn’t the same guy? Walt leaned back in his chair and plugged the black memory-device into the port. 

He saw a lot of people coming and going but it was strange to see himself enter the bar and drink a _Rainer_ on the screen. He knows it happened, he could see it happening right in front of him on the screen. Henry joined him for three or four minutes across the bar serving him a second _Rainer_ and a burger and he saw himself laugh. But he couldn’t pick out that one moment from the blur the last weeks had become. He wished like hell he remembered that moment.

He doesn’t know what he said, but it wasn’t what he should have said. _Sorry for sneaking out in the middle of the night like I hadn’t known exactly what I was doing when I reached for you, buried my hands in your hair and kissed you like I needed your mouth on mine just to keep breathing. Sorry if, maybe, leaving things like I did was an asshole thing to do. Sorry, it’s not you, it’s me...No, regrets._ Any of that, all of that, is what Walt knew he should have said when Henry was there to listen.

Somehow Walt doesn’t think he covered any part of that in the bar with drunk carousers stuck at each elbow. Even with all the shaky ground between them what had he said to make Henry laugh like that?

It seemed like a thing worth knowing. It was a sobering thought to realize he might never know. Walt tried not to think too hard about the fact that it might have been the last chance he had to shoot the breeze, drink beer, and just be with Henry. Time he’d wasted not saying what mattered.

_I need you._

_I want you._

_I……._

Amy White Feather, Hank Ellis and Mandy Hall arrived at the station and he could smell the rose scented perfume Mandy Hall favored. His nose would have preferred if she was less liberal with its application, it always made his nose itch. 

Walt hit pause on the footage and stood up exiting his office to greet them at the stairs. 

“Ms. White Feather, this is Hank Ellis it would be real helpful if you would give him a description of the man who accosted you at Henry’s bar,” Walt said signalling for Ferg to move out of his chair and dragged it over for Ellis who tipped the brim of his white Stetson in thanks as he seated himself.

Walt gave them breathing room so as not to hover but stayed close enough to hear leaning against the wall unobtrusively as he could make all six-feet and four inches of himself. 

“He was handsome enough, white, he had brown hair...a Superman jaw, you know? But a light beard too, a bit like...a lumber-jack or construction worker,” Amy White Feather said, huffing out a resigned breath the silver of her bracelet flashing as she waved her hand in the universal gesture for _what can I say?_

“That is why I almost left with him after all.”

“Well unless the times have changed that rules out lawyer and banker and adds half the town to the sheriffs suspect list,” Ellis remarked with a twinkle in his pale blue eyes that had Amy White Feather smiling with him and sitting more comfortably. 

Ellis turned his attention back to his work and Walt could hear the artist's pencil _scritch-scratching_ as he sketched on his drawing pad. 

If Walt were a different sort of man he’d be jealous of his easy way with women. But presently it was useful. Accurate recall was harder when a person was all locked up in defense mode. 

“Eyebrows?” Ellis asked wiggling his own at Amy White-Feather who laughed, still that pretty Nightingale chime.

“They were average I guess. Not bushy but they were not manicured either. He must have had a glass nose, though. It looked like it had been broken a few times, does that help?” Amy White Feather asked, craning her head to look back at Walt.

“It helps Amy,” Walt said, moving from the wall and looking down at the drawing over Ellis’ shoulder. Walt took the pad but was unable to place a name to the face that was beginning to form in clean black lines. 

“Mandy, does this look like the man who tried to kidnap you?” Walt asked, handing her Ellis’ sketch. 

She shook her head. “Sorry, Sheriff. I never saw his face.” 

She frowned, scrunching up her nose in a way that even Walt could see why half the local boys were gone on her. 

“But there is this one thing I remember, a logo on his sweater -- it looked sort of like a ferret or opossum? And the words, they were in yellow I think.” 

Walt froze at the same time Amy White Feather spoke up. 

“He was wearing a grey _Wolverines, West Yellowstone High_ sweater, wasn’t he?” Amy White Feather asked fiddling with the feather charm on her bracelet.

“Yes” Mandy said her whole face lit up brightly, “I don’t know why I couldn't remember that. How did you know that?”

“Because that was what the guy at the _Red Pony_ was wearing,” Amy White Feather said looking over at Walt.

She studied Walt her expression unreadable. She had a hell of a poker face. “What are the chances, hmm?” 

“I should have remembered that!” Mandy said, wheat-gold hair bounding around her face as she shook her head. She leaned into the hand Amy White Feather put on her shoulder. “Sorry, I guess I just didn’t want to think about it once it was over.”

Ellis patted her small, delicate hand with his large bear paws. “Don’t you worry, honey. You remembered when it counted, that's what matters. So, Sheriff, looks to me like my work here is done, you’ve got your sketch and from the look on your mug, I’d hazard a guess that you’ve a lead, too.”

“Thanks, Ellis” Walt said, “I’ll see to it you get that check.”

Ellis glanced sideways at the two girls and grinned wryly. “You know what, Sheriff. Just this once, my artistic services are on the house. A good cause and all.” 

“Okay” Walt said, shaking Ellis’ hand and showing him out the door. Last he heard Ellis was sweet-talking Mandy and Amy White Feather into drinks at the _Half-Moon Cafe_ as they descended the stairs. Ellis’ smooth, southern-accents and the girl's soft laughter echoing in the halls. 

Pouring himself a mug of coffee under Ruby’s disproving watch Walt went back to the laptop and stared at the image on the screen. There was a man at the bar wearing a grey _Wolverines, West Yellowstone High_ sweater, what were the chances?

Not saying a word to Ferg and Vic who were watching him curiously Walt printed out the image comparing it to the sketch in his hand. They were a match. 

Vic looked between the two and cursed. “Christ, Walt! This is the guy Mandy and Amy identified. He’s even wearing his ugly ass high school sweater.” 

“There’s just one thing that doesn’t make sense. Why’d this loser go from attempted kidnappings of two women to a man? I mean, it’s not like Henry is even vaguely androgynous, you know? Why didn’t this guy just…” Vic trailed off cutting a look at Walt's face. 

It didn’t look good, he knew, he feels like he’s swallowed ash and ants are crawling in his veins. 

Ruby was right, he shouldn't have had that second coffee.

“Kill him? That is what you were going to say, wasn’t it,” Walt said. “I don’t know why, Vic. It doesn’t make sense to me either, this is what they pay us for. To figure the hard stuff out. We have a place to start.”

Vic paced, stopped, and turned fully toward Walt. “It’s been three weeks, Walt. We don’t know that he’s still even alive. We both know the odds after the first forty-eight hours in a kidnapping case. I worked a few, down in Phili. I know you don’t want to think about it Walt, but maybe you should consider that he’s...dead.”

Walt crossed his arms, his stance widening as he looked at his two deputies. “We don’t know that he’s dead. At this point, we don’t know much of anything other than we have two suspicious men in town, and one of them got in a fight with Henry three weeks ago. We do know that he used a racist slur, maybe this is a hate crime. But either way, there is no body, and until then...” he trailed off, breathing hard.

“Henry isn’t dead. He isn’t.” Walt didn’t know who he was trying to convince Vic and Ferg or himself. 

Three weeks was a long time for a person to be missing and at the mercy of a kidnapper. There were a lot of bad things that could happen in three weeks and Walt didn’t have the luxury of ignorance. 

He knew the bad things people did in the dark. 

Call it intuition, call it foolhardy hope, but Walt always figured that if Henry died he’d just know deep down in his bones. He didn’t feel any different -- not like he thought he should feel. If the worst had happened and Henry was dead.

“Walt’s right, Vic. We don’t know why, or how, or anything at all yet. But what we do know is that this guy is involved,” Ferg said, flicking the photo sharply as though by some obscure magic the jab would transfer to the man they’re now officially hunting. “I’ll take this photo and ask around, see if anyone remembers seeing him.” 

“Okay, fine.” Vic relented, her blond ponytail jerking as she nodded curtly. “You’re right, without a body we work this like a rescue not - like a rescue. Okay, gimme one of those,” Vic said snatching up one of the photos as she shrugged into her coat. “You take the north side, I’ll take the sought, we’ll meet in the middle.” 

Walt turned to Ruby who had been quietly watching from her corner of the office. She wore a look of stern determination that bolstered Walt’s resolve. “Ruby, run a _BOLO_ on this suspect and an _Amber Alert_ on Henry Standing Bear. If anyone’s seen either of them in the last three weeks I want to be the first to know.”

Ruby nodded, already returning to her desk. “You got it, Walt.” 

Walt followed Vic and Ferg down the steps on autopilot. He paused at the top back-lit by the rising sun, a bastion of hope that lit up the sky as it chased back the looming dark for a few more hours.

Walt bowed his head and sent up a silent prayer, just the one. 

_God. Don’t you let him be dead._


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ghost of Martha sweeps in at Henry's darkest hour bringing with her all the warmth of a Summer's eve.

_Wolf Creek Campgrounds, Wyoming_

_Kidnapping: Week Two_

  
  


_Be silent._ They said. A hand clamped over his mouth when he cried out unable to keep it bottled inside, rattling like crushed glass in his throat. He tried to speak but the words cut him up as they fell out, pinpricks of small sharp agonies that pulsed, nerves sparking like livewires that snaked through his body.

_Be still._ They said. Rough hands raked over tanned skin, goosebumps raised along naked limbs; they painted his body with blood and bruises, blunt nails digging half-moon grooves into his hips. He became their bloodied canvas of living, breathing flesh -- each night they added a new layer of red. 

Connoisseurs of the little death, he was now more _Picassian_ abstract than man as they rearranged his parts to suit their desires. If he looked into a mirror would he even recognize who stared back? Would it be him looking back or black, empty sockets with no eyes. 

_Stitched together strawman_ . They said. He pressed his hand over his ears to drown out the crashing, cackling, laughter as they said it again and again, shiny black-eyed crows pecking at open wounds. _Whore._ They said. Pressing bitter and salt into his mouth, he was sick with it, even as they touched with false-kindness moving him in ways he did not want to be moved. _‘No’_ he thought, but what was one voice shouted into a storm? A penny dropped into the Atlantic seabed.

_Be quiet._ They said. In by inch cracking him open until everything that was meant to be secret and hidden below the surface was laid bare to open skies and prying eyes and grasping hands 

that took and took and _took_. 

Fangs sank into the meat of his neck. Marking. Pink ragged edged wounds that would never heal. He gouged red weeping lines into his own flesh -- aching to feel something besides the cold numbness filling his empty corners. 

_‘Time, time is the great healer’_ he thought, but did not believe in the places where it might matter. His spirit was the last flickering of a dying fire, burning solely to spit in the eye of the storm that smothered. It was not enough. How could it be? 

_Be still._ They said once more. Devouring him whole, wolves eating of the caribou as it still breathed, slowly dying in the dirt as life-blood stained the snow black. He was submerged, head forcibly driven below the surface of a Stygian river of violent death. He struggled to break the surface and they stole the breath from his lungs, rushing inside, taking him over. 

Demons that he could not exorcise from his body. 

_‘No more’_ he thought, as he fell backward into its violent embrace, the rushing of the river. 

He was too tired to swim for that faraway shore, the gleaming mirage of golden sand and hope flickered before his eyes. His limbs were exhausted from thrashing and kicking against them as they tore at him, teeth and claws gouging deep below the skin. 

Distantly he felt calloused fingers and a strong, familiar grip tugging at his wrist. 

Was someone calling his name? 

He knew that voice...surly, bullheaded, and loved. 

_‘Henry? Don’t you be dead, you hear?’_

Henry did not speak, made voiceless by the water rushing over him, an invisible prison that caged his words deep inside. No matter, it was too late, he was too far under to break the surface. 

He surrendered -- let the water take him where it will. 

It lashed against him and he did not fight as he began to sink, _down, down, down_ he fell into the soundless abyss. He had no breath to cry out for help -- there was no one here but him. Who would come if he found the voice to call out? There were only monsters, here in the murky dark.

Someone was reaching, a hand grasping into the black uncaring of the things that lurked below the surface. Did he not see the wreck they had made of him? A rusted knife with a blunted edge, a storyteller who had forgotten the words. 

_Useless..._

No, he would not answer. 

_‘Henry!’_

He was too cold, all warmth that he had once known dwindled down to cinders and ash that would no longer burn. 

He closed his eyes.

Henry came awake gasping his eyes rolling and wild as he struggled, restrained limbs thrashing as he fought to drag in huge lungs full of air. It had felt like thrashing inside an invisible prison until his will gave out and he no longer had the strength to try, bogged down by watery weights that pulled him into the deep.

He could almost taste it on his tongue, the bitter tang of salt water gushing into his lungs, he wanted to wrap his arms around his stomach as phantom pain ricocheted down his ribs and torso. He lay there on the mattress half curled in on himself breathing hard through his mouth while he worked to calm the clamoring of his heart _thunk-thunk_ it went, pounding against his breastbone as though it might break free its fleshy prison.

He felt like he had been drowning; his chest aching, limbs tired from thrashing against an ocean of water that did not exist anywhere except in his head. Exhaling a ragged breath Henry dropped his head onto his arm. 

“What the fuck,” he muttered, cringing at the sweat beaded on his face. “Walt” he said, in answer to the vision dream, his voice cracking even as he whispered it into the silence of the room. His mouth shaped the word, a silent mouthing of the unspoken, again and again, but he did not speak it for fear that he might never stop. 

He folded in on himself as much as he could, blinking the wet film of tears from his eyes. He hated that part of him wanted to curl up and just...sleep until all this became something lesser, as though it was some dream he could shake free of. He knew better, but still, the desire lingered. Every inch of him ached. Locked in permanent stasis, time ceased to have meaning; days passed in the blink of an eye, and moments became infinite.

Had it only been two weeks? It was hard to tell, but he did not think it had been much more than that. 

He knew he was growing far too used to it, this new pain, it was becoming more and more a part of him with each day that passed and yet the unpleasant shock of it remained as fresh as a wound newly cut.

_‘Lie still,’_ they said and he did.

_‘Open your mouth,’_ they said, and the pale gleam of a knife pressed to his jaw ensured compliance. 

_‘Be quiet,’_ they snarled, pressing him down into the mattress that squeaked as much as his own bed at the _Red Pony_. He would need a new one, if he returned home. Every time he heard the metal springs screech he would become entangled in the memory of this.

He had a choice he supposed. It just was not a very good one. 

He tried fighting and it had not worked, this was not a movie, the restraints did not miraculously begin to loosen no matter how hard he pulled, or how desperately he prayed that they might -- the blood flaking his wrists were proof enough. 

He had tried. 

Short of a conveniently abandoned paper-clip the only other option was that of the trapped wolf who chewed through its own paw in a last bid for freedom. It was a choice, in a way, but it was not one he would act upon. He lived, he breathed, so long as there was that there existed the chance, however slim, that he might find a way to escape. 

For each will, there was said to exist a way. He just had not found the door to it yet. _Enough,_ he scolded, something hot and fiery rising, smothering the wellspring of pity. 

As he calmed the mad racing of his heart he saw the pale slivers of sunlight breaking through the dim RV lightening on the bed in scattered rays of gold. It was such a small, pretty thing, light piercing the dark with bright sunshine that he could not resist turning his face into it. He leaned his body into the places it touched on the mattress; if he closed his eyes it left the soft impression of a light embrace, a lingering warmth, like a feather-soft caress trailed against skin that was now broken open and bloodied in places he did not wish to examine.

It was pleasant to feel the warm kiss of the midday sun. 

Martha’s hair had looked like that to him; strands of gold stolen from the sun that shone as vividly as her white-hot spirit. That woman had been full of life, right up to the end, and even as she parlayed with Death she had not let her inner self be dimmed by the cancer. 

She had been an admirable woman and he and Walt had been very lucky men. He did not know why he thought of her now, of all times, but he did not regret it. 

Her memory settled over him like a balmy Summer's evening, the ghost of her lips against his cheek a welcome escape. 

Wyoming had been buzzing with life, green sprig’s popping up from the ground, little shoots struggling against the dirt in their quest for sunlight, red-throated hummingbirds hunting for nectar from purple budded lupin’s, yellow zinnia’s, and shell-pink bleeding heart’s. It was possible he had picked up a few things from Martha’s short lived attempt at gardening. 

Martha stood behind him but he knew she was there, he always did, he could scent the faint lavender perfume he knew that she dabbed at the hollow of her neck and below the curve of her breasts. He spoke her name into the quiet hush of evening, his eyes still fixed on the setting sun that lit up the rolling hills of the Longmire property. 

“Martha.”

She snorted, ruining her perfect _angel-of-the-house_ image, and Henry felt another tug of gentle fondness swell up in his chest. 

She stood with her arms crossed, head tilted to the side as she studied him, in a way that was oddly familiar. It was the look he most often saw on Walt’s face as the man tried to figure out a clue to a case, or sometimes, when the man was looking at him. 

Why he should find him a great puzzle Henry did not know. 

Martha had her blond hair pulled back in a messy bun and there was a spot of white flour on her forehead. 

She had been baking a pie. 

“What are you doing out here by yourself Henry?”

Henry smiled, softly brushing the flour from her skin. “I thought I would give you and Walt a moment alone.”

She huffed, a soft breathy sound that had him turning to look over, curious. “Well, you don’t need to do that Henry.” 

  
  


She stepped in close enough that the scent of lavender became stronger, filling his senses as they quietly stood on what would become the cabin porch. She reached out, her small hands, delicate but strong, resting over his absently drumming fingers, quelling his restless movement. 

“Come inside, Henry. It’s getting late.”

Henry frowned. “Late? It is barely evening, Martha.” 

“Come on, handsome,” Martha said, insistently pulling at his hand as she tried to lead him inside the cabin. He did not wish to go, it was peaceful standing here on the precipice balanced _between_ the now and then. 

“Henry, you can’t stay out here. We -- we both are always missing something if you're not there, you know? Besides, you know how he is -- Walt is waiting on you Henry.”

Henry hummed, staring out into the forest line thinking about how he wished Summer would never end. If he could just linger, living in this moment extended into an endless loop he would not mind. 

Henry had everything he could have ever wanted right here, at his side, and a few feet away inside, salivating over baked sweets. He had _them_ , it was only a greedy man who could desire more than this. 

He was many things, but not that.

“We could not have that,” Henry said, turning to Martha, his hand brushing a strand of blond hair from her cheek because he could, because he was allowed. 

Martha nudged him along, not wanting him to be left alone even with all the beauty of nature lighting up the view. “No, we couldn’t. Besides, Walt might eat all the pie! Best hurry up, it’s apple, you know.” 

Martha smiled wryly at his look of surprise, as though she were disappointed that he thought she had not remembered. 

Apple was his favorite. 

Henry ducked his head, feeling like a gently chided school-boy, a smile breaking free across his face as he followed her into what would someday be their cabin. 

Martha turned at the entrance, looking at Henry with sadness that felt out of place as she stretched out her hand, “Walt is still waiting on you, honey.”

Martha was still holding onto his hand but they were no longer outside the cabin. Henry did not know where he was at all, but everything was white at the edges, somewhere behind her he could see smoke pillaring from a chimney. He wondered who lived in that cabin, so isolated and far from the many comforts of civilization. 

_Omar, Omar Rhodes lives there,_ Henry thought, he and Walt had tracked a thief down that way once, though Henry knew not why it mattered. Why was he shown such a thing now?

“Henry?” Martha said, squeezing his hand tightly. “Don’t you give up. He’s waiting, he’s looking, I promise.” 

Henry jolted out of the memory and his body protested the sudden movement. That was not what she had said that night. Martha’s voice, soft and haunting, echoed in his thoughts. _‘Walt is still waiting.’_ He blew out an annoyed _ppft,_ but could not bring himself to be angry with even the ghost of Martha. He was the one who was left out, waiting, trying to hold the pieces of Walt together, hoping that what lay between them was not gone; a bridge washed out by a tide of shared grief.

And it was _shared_ but Walt forgot these things when it suited him sometimes. Henry never gave up on his friend because even if Walt was not a perfect man, he was a good one. He was worth it of course but fuck, sometimes it had stung being shut out like the dog on the porch.

For a second as Henry waded through the haze of memory he would swear he could see her, as bright and lovely as she had ever been in life. No translucent vision for Martha, she looked real enough to touch, to hold, her blue sundress illuminated in the pale glow of the midday sun. 

He blinked and she was gone but he could not forget she had come into his waking dreams like a vision of gold that brought with her the all the warmth of a Summer’s eve. 

She had not said those words in this life, not that night or any other night after. _Had it happened like that? What had really happened that night, if not that?_ He shivered, unsure what it was he felt, his throat becoming dry at the phantom press of Martha’s lips at his cheek, her words a soft summer breeze ghosting across the shell of his ear. Henry closed his eyes tight, breathing in the scent of lavender that had permeated the room so strongly that for a moment it drowned out the musky smell of sex that he was now stuck with until one of the men came through the place with _Febreeze_ or, fuck, bothered to clean the sheets. It lingered with him a spell, the welcome scent of lavender, the taste of apple pie, a gentle lull shrouding him where he lay.

In the end it did not matter. Had she really been here? Of course not that would have been impossible. Henry wrapped himself up in the memory of her all the same, stealing the warmth he could from her ghostly kiss, nothing more than a memory overlaying a reality he wanted no part of. It was not usually so warm but Henry did not question it taking his small pleasures where he could in the midst of this nightmare. 

He soaked up the sun, shivers breaking out across his naked skin. He could not remember the last time anything had felt so nice. 

He was alone for now. He could allow this small indulgence of pale warmth against his skin. A fleeting touch that held no weight. In a few hours time the light would shift, and he would be left to the bitter embrace of confining darkness. It would move and he would be unable to follow. He was the guest who could not leave. 

They came and went with their camera and its red recording dot and Henry decided he was to disturbed by what happened within the thin walls of this RV to be bothered about what happened when they finally left him alone to stitch the pieces of himself back together again. He had fewer pieces with each parting. 

_I wish I had closed up the bar and stayed in bed that night. I wish I had not taken out the trash bin. I could have done it in the morning. I wish...I had called Walt. Maybe he would have even picked up for a change,_ Henry thought, finding it amusing in a grim way to imagine what he might have even said to Walt.

He really did not know. He thought, _‘how about we get very drunk and never speak of it again’_ might have been worth mentioning, even if it made his insides ache to even consider speaking. It was pointless wonderings because he had not done any of those things but he found it a comfort to think of Walt Longmire, living in the world beyond the confines of this RV doing his job and locking up the bad guys. It was something they could not take from him. 

_I have known him for over 30 years, I would have liked to have known him for 30 more. We were the quiet white-boy and the Indian from the Rez. Someday -- someday we would have been the grumpy old Sheriff and his Indian friend from the Rez. Some things change, but not this. Whatever else might change, we are friends._ Henry knew, if he could say one thing to Walt it would be that.

_No matter what, friends._ It would have been enough. 

Walt was a good man who was very good at his job but he was not Superman, he could not be everywhere, know everything at once. There was very little chance Walt would find him -- _alive_ \-- Henry had made his peace with that. 

His body, perhaps. 

The men, possibly. 

He knew Walt would try, he would move his Christian Heaven above and Hell below for the people he loved. It did not make Henry feel better to know this. 

Walt would do his best, but he was only human.

Henry did not wish to be another dead love Walt had to bury; another dead love Walt felt he had to avenge. 

_It is what it is, oh how my words come back to bite me right on the ass_ , Henry thought to himself. _How many times have I said that to Walt over the years -- him hating it more with each telling. I think he knew, some was just baiting to make the old bear growl. Yes, he knows me well enough for that._ Henry huffed quietly just thinking of Walt’s face, the angry, bullheaded look of determination he got to prove Henry wrong whenever that subject was brought up in conversation. But it would seem Karma was a cunning bitch who beat them both in the end. 

Walt might enjoy knowing that.

Walt liked winning, whether it was an argument, or a fistfight. He could lose with grace, Henry had seen it done a time or two, if he had too. Karma had a leg up over both of them this round -- nothing for it but to take it. In the end what would be would be. 

Henry wriggled the restrains that tethered him to the RV just to hear them rattle. He kept at it even as red bloomed on his skin. At this point a few more marks did not matter terribly. He wondered how long his alone time would last.

He could not hear Mitch or Trig puttering around in the front section of the RV, perhaps they were outside. Perhaps they had driven off never to return and some unfortunate camper would discover his rotting corpse, hands still tethered to the metal headboard. He was not sure why, but the idea of still being restrained even in death bothered him more than the death itself.

It spoke of a tethered spirit forced to wander the mortal plane the Forked Path, haunting the shadows of the living. 

_Okay, that got a little dark,_ Henry thought blowing out a breath. He could not believe that he was stuck between wishing _them_ dead and gone, leaving him to a slow death by starvation and exposure or simply out for a short period of undetermined time before returning and fucking him some more. 

This was his life, such as it was, for now. 

He had no real desire to shake hands with Death but each time they fucked him, leaving him smelling like sex and stale sweat, come slick on his body he felt like he did die, just a little. And not the happy _joie de vivre,_ little death, the French extolled. No, the shards of glass in the gut and bleeding out with an ambulance nowhere in sight kind. 

Deep down he could feel the splintering of self, his spirit wandering, loosely tethered as though by a frayed rope as he struggled to remember...to remember what? Tomorrow was another day? Time was the _great_ healer? It was cold comfort to Henry, he did not know if he would live long enough for the wounds to close and the bruises to fade back into his skin. 

Left to the mercy of the suffocating silence inside the RV it was becoming harder and harder to pull himself back from the black moods, the hollowed out numbness that overtook him when they would leave. He shuddered, shoulders hunching inward and it was only with a great force of will that he derailed his mind from its grim musings. _Life, no one gets out alive,_ Henry thought, knowing Walt would not have found his gallows humor amusing. If the man were here, he would get his say, but he was not. 

Henry consigned himself to waiting, as much as he hated them, and hated them he did -- with a burning fury that kept him from sinking too far into the black. He was not ready to find out what came next when this life was over. Henry was not ready for the _Camp of the Dead_ , but he supposed who was, in the end?

There was no preparing for death, it was not afternoon tea, or the prep before rush hour at the bar.

If he laid perfectly flat and craned his neck he could just make out a partial view outside this place through the small window. This fracture view allowed him a small measure of escape. A fleeting reminder that even if it felt like all was lost, stuck staring at this ugly mustard yellow paneling, hope remained. 

Life went on and people lived their lives. Someone out there was having a good day, it just was not him.

A fine misting of snow covered the ground and the trees were heavy with white snow covering their branches, they bent low beneath the added weight and if he listened beyond the rabbit-fast thump of his heart he could hear the ripple of wind over water. He bent his whole mind to listening to the softer sounds of the wild, allowing the melody of nature to drown out the rising complaints of his body and ease the ache that resided in his spirit. It was his solace. He turned his face toward the lingering sunlight and it felt _nice._

A small decent thing he could experience...

Henry was ripped from his thoughts when he heard the crunch of boots on crushed snow and the harsh squeak of the RV door opening. They were back. He beat back his panic by wondering who and what it would be today. 

He had a 33% chance of guessing correctly.

Three men, three possibilities, the man with the cam-recorder was squeamish but still happy enough to take the Benjamins and Franklins greasing his palms for his editorial filming talents. _Trig is in charge, he calls the shots on this operation and the Recorder does not get his hands dirty -- he is in and out, taking his money with him. Mitch is impulsive. He lacks any self-restraint and possesses a libido that would make the Pope blush._ Henry ground his teeth together, jaw clenching as he breathed through the hot rush of shame burning in his gut. He wished that was not something he knew so intimately. 

He clenched and unclenched his fist scraping open half-healed wounds encircling his wrists, police restraints were not gentle, their edges hard and unbending, and the men were often over enthusiastic and uncaring as they pulled him about like an intimate blow-up doll. It hurt to pull at them like this but he found the sharp sting, a small starburst of pain that chased back the chasm of numbness that threatened to envelop him completely, useful. The pain was grounding, at least, and failing that, it was something he could control. 

It was little enough, but it was something.

Henry could hear the metal rattle and when no one shouted for him to _‘shut the fuck up’_ he did it again. Seeing if perhaps today something would give way. He drew himself up to his knees and put his full weight into pulling backwards, the skin around his wrist breaking open, red blood slipping down to his elbows and the blue sheets covering the mattress. 

_Dammit, I have to sleep here!_ Henry sighed, but he did not stop. The dull edges of the restraints split through skin, wedging deeper into him the harder he tugged; he set aside the pain flaring up, starting at his wrist and zinging straight to his shoulders but he ignored it. _Pain is just an illusory sensation that the mind can shut down if it needs to,_ he told himself. 

Henry knew he needed to at least try. Sweat broke out, collecting at his neck, chest, and forehead as the muscles in his back strained against the metal fixed to the wall. He did not think that even at his best he could pry the metal from the wall and he was decidedly not at his best, his eyes darted towards the heavens, seeking inspiration, but all he saw was the inky darkness of the RV.

His muscles screamed in silent protest, throbbing under the unremitting pressure he placed on them.

_I cannot do it, I am not strong enough,_ Henry thought, his lips drawing back in a wordless snarl, tears of frustration gathering at the corner of his eye like rain on a dusty mesa. It was no use, the metal would not give; the restraints held him just as surely as the hand that squeezed the back of his neck before bending him over the mattress. He was just as fucked now as he was going to be later when they decided to remember he was here. 

Henry listed against the wall, his head bowed between his shoulders. He heard the heavy tread of boots and trembled, even as he hated himself for it, shaking like a kicked dog. They were ruining him, inch by inch, taking and taking and _taking_ until there was nothing left inside. He smelled the snow, clean and bitter cold and all he thought was how much he wanted a shower, a freezing river to leap into, anything to wipe their stink from his skin. 

He once loved watching the snowfall in winter how it muffled the usual bustle of the world to a tolerable stillness and near silence. He looked at it now, white and clean, and felt more deeply the stains that clung to him, on him, inside him.

He longed to scrub until skin broke and peeled so a new layer could grow over it, new skin that _they_ had not touched. Once he had loved a bit of rough with his bed-play. Walt, throwing him onto the bed before following him down, eyes blue enough Henry could drown in them when they were pinned on him, dark with desire. Feeling the callouses on Walt’s hands as they ran up the inside of his thighs. Blunt fingernails digging in at his waist; leaving pale bruises at the crease of his hips when they made love.

It was another thing they have taken, he was not sure he could ever bear another man's touch again and it hurt something inside Henry to recognize that fact. Cracks were forming, fissures spider-walking through his spirit, he could feel it, doubts sliding in like a knife between the ribs. Not even his belief in Walter Longmire would hold these wolves at bay as they ripped and tore at the tapestry of his spirit. _What more will they devour, what more is left?_ It was a question he did not want an answer for. Henry did not think he would like it. 

Fingers grip his chin dragging his head up at an awkward angle. Henry felt his resolve crumble as he allowed the touch without complaint, the fight gone out of him leaving him hollowed out and empty. The ghost of Martha, lavender and zinnias, haunted his senses and he felt himself drift, curled up in a blanket of memory. 

Trig smiled down at him and Henry shivered. He was a beautiful, fallen angel with the devil peering out from the back of his blue eyes. When Henry stared into his eye all he saw was a predator -- playing with its food before it went for the jugular. Mitch was the only one who could not see it. 

Trig snorted, letting go of him. “Good. Thought you were dead for a second, nothing more useless than a dead whore.” Trig laughed at his own joke. 

“You’re already on your knees, even better.”

Henry averted his eyes. “No. I am not dead.” 

Henry could see that Trig had a new shiny, black _Panasonic_ camcorder in his hand and his stomach lurched. The men’s enterprise had begun to pay well enough for a more expensive upgrade. He was not sure if this should please or concern him, perhaps a little of both was the reasonable response.

Mostly, he just felt very tired, the walls were closing in around him, and his mind kept playing tricks in the dark. If they did not kill him, he might well go insane. How else to explain the lucid dreaming, the blank spots in his memory when he would come back to...well, whatever it was he had tried to escape in the first place. 

_Perhaps death would be kinder,_ Henry mused. 

He could hear Trig unzipping his pants, the clank of his gold embossed belt buckle as it hit the floor and Henry clenched his hand to still its quaking. Henry kept his face turned away, hidden, in the shield he had made of his arm so he would not have to see. As if it mattered what he could or could not see. Still, it kept the tears back behind his eyes and it was a small choice he could make for himself.

The silence was deafening, but his ears were ringing with the chaotic static of white-noise and Trig had his hand on him, shoving him until his face was bowed into the mattress, his hips snug against the other man's dick. Trig’s hands were sliding up the side of his bare flanks, cold and impersonal like a seller checking stock. He leaned forward, away from the man, and Trig grunted in annoyance. 

“Stop that, you hear.” 

Trig groaned approvingly, grabbing at his ass and squeezing. “Not bad, old man. Mitch sure can pick grade-A ass, I’ll give the boy that.”

Henry exercised restraint and said nothing but his mind was whirring, weighing the pro’s and con’s of any choice for action he could make. Was there even anything that could be done? _Best not_ , _last time Trig got his hands around my throat the room blacked out. I woke to Mitch. I remember, the fear, it had been bright in his hazel eyes,_ Henry thought to himself. Until that moment Henry had not known for sure if Mitch would care if he died and it was not the first time Henry wondered what might have happened if Mitch had not been so forceful in his demands. 

If they had met under different terms. Well, Walt sure as hell had not been seeing _him_ the past five weeks. Perhaps, perhaps not, it did not matter, it was in the past now. 

Henry grit his teeth as Trig continued to run his hands over his body, palming his ass, as his fingers, wet with saliva pressed inside him, doing a sloppy, cursory job of opening him up. Spit was a poor substitute for lube but it was better than nothing.

He hated it, regardless, even if it made penetration hurt less. He hated how the man touched him like he _owned_ him, his body, his fingers scissoring, the burning stretch of a clinical, expeditious prep.

Trig just did not want to break him yet, Henry knew that. Beyond that the man did not care. 

The restraints would not break, the metal frame would not break, but he might. Henry was still aching and burning from last night, and the night before that. Fuck, it hurt -- _he_ hurt in ways he had not experienced before. _Two weeks of this and each time it is like the first,_ Henry thought as Trig rubbed his length against his ass, slipping it between his thighs, and thrust, once, twice, moaning loudly.

Buying time for the camera, putting on a show for whoever was paying that wanted to see two young, athletic white boys screw an Indian. Henry wished he was numb to it by now, perhaps that might have made it easier, but he was not. 

_Trig gets off on the struggle, thrives on pain, I can see it in the light that burns in his eyes, that dark gleam of satisfaction when...when I have no choice but to...cry out,_ Henry thought to himself as Trig rocked his hips forward, the friction of skin on skin making Henry’s nerves spark, as the man at his back talked for the camera. 

Henry did not need to be listening to know what he would be saying. 

_‘Whore,’_ he might say, as he worked himself into hardness. 

_‘Indian,’_ as though that was a brand of its own. 

_‘He wants it, bad’_ spoken into the camera as he touched Henry. 

_‘Smile for the camera,’_ as Trig worked himself inside, he was always cheap with the slick, barely enough to keep Henry from screaming. Or bleeding, for that matter. He felt a little bit more like dying every time one of these men lay with him, moving inside him hard enough that his head would bang against the wall or the muscles in his legs started throbbing from the strain.

No, he did not need to listen. Henry had heard it before. 

He struggled to keep a wall between what went on here and anything to do with his nights with Longmire but they were beginning to bleed into one another, their marks seeping through to sully the canvas of much kinder memories. Walt had never been this rough -- no one he had lain with had _ever_ been this rough. He was not quite a young man anymore, it took longer than they allowed for him to recover.

But what could he do? Police restraints were not known for being easily removed, it would defeat the purpose for which they were created. Henry did not fight, trying to lessen the damage he tried to remain calm, his limbs pliant in surrender. It would be a waste of what reserves he had left to put on a pretense of a fight. He made a half-hearted attempt to split his mind from his body so what happened next would be tolerable. Bearable.

It did not help much in the end when Trig pressed new bruises into the old ones bracketing Henry’s waist; there would be a colorful overlapping patchwork of blue and lilac in the morning.

_Do not think of Walt...Do not think…_

Henry clutched at the bedding edge feeling the coarse texture of the blue sheets wrinkle, rubbing fractiously against his fingertips, every jostle sent ripples of pain through his body, tearing from him a low-pitched gasp, muffled by the cotton pillow half-suffocating his face. The taste of copper peppered his tongue as Henry tried to muzzle the sounds, tearing to escape, clawing their way up his throat as Trig worked himself inside, a dull aching throb like sandpaper rubbing against skin.

Henry tried not to struggle but it still hurt badly enough that his vision swam, after that it was instinctive, pushing against the wall, against the man, which only served to push Trig further inside himself, and his mangled wrists throbbed terribly. Henry felt broken and burning, too hot and too cold all at once, and not any fistfight or sucker punch had ever hurt this much.

Trig had a hand wrapped around his throat, squeezing, his nonverbal warning to _‘keep it down’_ as he snapped his hips up hard. 

Henry whined softly, but was otherwise silent. Head bowed between his shoulders, his skin tingling and sweaty as his pulse raced like a jack-rabbit, _thud, thud, thud_ , but he kept quiet.

He wanted to crawl out of his own skin, just drift off into the soft darkness and not return but he did not. Henry was too afraid he might lose his way back to sever that last, worn thread. Walt, the surly bastard, might never forgive him. Fuck, he was doing it again -- thinking of Walt when he should not be. _Stop_ , Henry thought to himself, striking the wall with his head, pain reverberated through his skull, he focused on that. _Just stop_ , he thought again as his hands aimlessly pulled at the restraints.

Trig stopped moving and Henry inhaled sharply, taking the chance to reorient himself and calm his panicked breathing, it would not do to pass out. He was afraid to with Trig pressed against this back, his hands far too close to the nape of his neck. 

“Don’t move, you hear?” Trig warned, his hand slapping against Henry’s thigh.

“Mitch, get in here dude!” Trig shouted.

Henry could hear the clatter of plastic forks being dropped and the smell of pan fried hot-dogs and canned beans wafted into the back room. Mitch sauntered into the doorway where he slouched in an indolent sprawl with his arm propped on the mustard yellow panels. 

“What?” Mitch asked. 

There were small lines at the corner of his eyes, and his mouth was pulled in a taut line of displeasure. 

Henry could hear the waver, the brittle strain in his voice. Mitch’s possessive streak was rising to the surface again. 

_Mitch does not like sharing. Either Trig does not notice, but it is more likely he does not care. He is the lion here, not Mitch. It is a pity, I might have been able to reason with Mitch...he enjoys the sex. Trig, he is...baiting his hunger,_ Henry thought to himself as he watched the two men square off from the corner of his eye while he himself was strung out like a lamb for slaughter. 

It was deeply unsettling, being smothered under two-hundred-odd pounds of a man he did not trust, with another he did not like standing watch, buck-ass naked. 

_Fuck, he better not say anything stupid,_ Henry prayed.

Mitch sighed, visibly recalibrating his attitude to deference as he rubbed a hand over the stubble darkening his jaw. “I’m not into voyeurism, you freak. What you want, man?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Trig muttered, a proprietary hand gripping Henry hard enough that his blunt fingers dig into his hip-bone. Henry could feel the burn of Mitch’s hard stare flicking over Trig’s hand but he said nothing. 

He was not stupid after all then. 

Trig shifted Henry’s knees wider apart, pulling out and then sliding back inside in one long, slow push. “You screwed ‘em this morning didn’t you? Don’t you lie either -- I can tell, he’s tight as a two dollar whore.”

Mitch shrugged, his head canted to the side. “Heh, yes? He’s fucking pretty.” 

“Dammit, Mitch!” Trig snarled. “Did you make a video? Fuck, we can get paid for that shit, or did you suddenly forget?”

Mitch had his hand out, palm up to pacify Trig. “I got carried away, you know? Sorry. I’ll film the next session, okay? _Deep Inside_ pays well for amateur videos -- we’re solid for the month.”

Trig relented rocking his hips a little, hitting the spot that made Henry bite his lip bloody, keeping his gasp of pleasure caught behind his teeth. 

Trig groaned, his head tipping forward to rest against Henry’s shoulder. “Fu-ck, okay, you’re right. Get the hell out, now.”

_It is good to be king,_ Henry thought as Mitch quickly backed out of the room. It was humiliating how they talked as though he were not even present, just the body they fucked, _the Whore._

“Sh-it,” Trig muttered, as he worked into Henry with quick, over-eager thrusts, spreading his thighs wider to allow the black camera a clear view of the pale dick moving roughly in his ass.

Henry braced himself, his restrained hands tightening on the metal headboard to keep his face from being slammed into the wall. 

Trig hissed out a guttural moan as he bottomed out. 

“I didn’t mean it, you know,” he said, running a firm hand over Henry’s ribs, which were more pronounced than they had been a week ago. 

Who knew, kidnapping and rape lead to a diminished apatite. That, and neither of the men could cook worth shit. Never mind _Jenny Craig,_ Henry had discovered the real secret. 

Somehow, he did not think it would sell on the market. 

“Always so fucking tight to start.” 

He was still talking. Henry grit his teeth wishing the man would just get on with it _fuck him, finish, and get the fuck out_ . He was tired of listening to him, to _both_ of them. If this was the man’s idea of pillow talk no wonder he could not get laid without the necessity of restrains. 

But then, Trig did not want willingness, he wanted this -- rough, and hard, and too fast for _anything_ to feel good. 

Trig began moving inside him, grunting and groaning, and Henry took it in silence, face twisted with pain, but made no sound. 

He focused on the diagonal scratch he etched into the wall instead, on the soft link of the restraints, and the gentle murmur of the river outside. 

Henry turned his face away from the recording light -- a bright red pinprick in the dark. He did not want to see it, the reminder that his humiliation did not amount to more than the price of a nice blue-collar house with a white picket fence. Blanketing the world in unseeing-dark was one thing but he could not block out the sounds. The jarring metallic _clank_ of cuffs rattling, ragged exhales and hot breath ghosting the back of his neck. Teeth sank into the side of his neck and Henry surrendered, his body going limp in compliance. 

Drifting in the black, he could no longer feel anything -- heard nothing but the ringing in his ears, as his mind was hollowed of conscious thought -- beginning to shut down and turn out everything around him. 

Henry imagined a cabin far, _far_ away. 

He followed the scent of lavender and yellow zinnias, a brisk summer’s eve, and worn leather from a newly cleaned gun-holster. Anywhere but here, trapped beneath the weight of a man that stank of sweat and Marlboro cigarettes as ownership of his body was trespassed. Somewhere there stood a cabin bracketed by rolling hills buried in white powdered snow, an orange fire gently flickering, it was warm and safe, and on the mantle there sat a pile of classical books, and in the bedroom an old clock. 

It's soft, rhythmic _tick-tock’s_ counting down the hours until sunrise. 

_Absaroka Police Station_

_Two Weeks Ago:_

Walt startled from his doze at the loud _clunk_ of a coffee mug landing hard on his desk. Shit! He’d been sleeping on the job. And it hadn’t even been good sleep, what the hell was wrong with him lately? He kept getting pulled into chaotic, troubling dreams that left him with a bad feeling he couldn’t shake. He could never hold on to much of it once he’d woken from the fog of sleep, just these flashing images, white snow turning black with cigarette ash, wolves tearing into sheep staked out in the woods, and a trapped bear. Walt knew it didn't mean shit but it bothered him that he kept dreaming of a bear with it’s leg caught in a steel-trap, metal jaws grinding into fleshy paws.

He had stood over it, looked it in the eyes, and that was always when he woke up feeling like he’d just kicked a whole litter of wriggling button nosed puppies and shot their mom. His job gave him enough shit when he was awake, he didn’t need his mind tormenting him when he was asleep, too. 

There was this nagging, pulling sensation that had him half-ready to stuff his Stetson on his head and stomp over to the _Red Pony_ all hell for leather, but he couldn't figure what came next when he’s shoved the swinging saloon doors open and he see’s Henry standing behind the bar, alive and well, and looking far to handsome for Walt’s liking as he wipes down the bar-top, playing up his role as _imparter of great wisdom_ to fall down drunks.

What then? Does he follow through striding forward until all that stood between them is a slab of wood as he looked the other man in the eye and...what. This is where the dream fell apart. What is there that he can say with people at various stages of drunk looking on? Not what needs to be said that’s for damn sure. _‘I’m sorry, can we try that again’_ is what he thought might be appropriate but Walt didn’t want witnesses or the barrier of the bar counter between him and Henry when he said that.

He wanted the mad crush of lips, teeth, and tongue, hands pulling at his belt, as his own ripped open checkered flannel, buttons flying like those bodice ripper novels some women enjoyed. He wanted the heady, white rush of friction and tight heat and nothing between, ever again, but skin. Words sometimes failed him but _that_ would make for one hell of an apology. 

Ruby frowned down at him, nudging the hot beverage closer.

Walt yawned, stretching his hands wincing as various joints creaked ominously. He remained seated, clearing his throat as he looked at the woman pretending he hadn’t just got lost in a swell of desire at the thought of what he wanted to do to Henry the next time he saw him, an inconvenient hard-on hidden under his mahogany desk.

“Looked like you were having some dream,” she remarked, pulling out a chair on the other side of his desk and making herself right at home in the leather hard-backed chair most often occupied by criminals and suspects. 

The _‘do you want to talk about it’_ remained un-verbalized and Walt was grateful. He was not a child, he didn’t need to talk about the monster under his bed or who he wanted _in_ his bed, for that matter.

He suspected it would not shock Ruby terribly; she had always been a clever woman with an ear to the latest going on's. The best thing about her was she was a rare breed of gossip -- she used her powers of gab for good.

Walt is not sure he and Henry have been quite as clever as they have thought they were; having been doing this song and dance a long time it was possible she had cottoned on and never said. If she knew she had never let on and if she didn’t, well, that was alright because Walt had no intention of airing his private affairs in public. What he chose to do off the clock in his own home was no one's business but his and the interested party he’d brought into his bed. 

Walt took the coffee she kept nudging towards him, grateful to warm his hands against the hot ceramic. He studied the cup in his hand and smiled ruefully, wrapped around the side was the image of a black bear standing at a river bank. He squinted over at the older woman, frowning. There were a lot of mugs in the cabinet, well there were four, and this was the one she had selected? 

He got the message, loud and clear. 

“Are you suggesting I need a break?” 

“You said it Walter, not me.”

“Huh.” 

“Honey, you sure you don’t need to talk about something?” Ruby asked, leaning forward. “You kept repeating something and Walt? You seemed...upset.”

Walt took a long pull from his coffee and knew heading down to the _Red Pony_ was completely out of the question. If Ruby could tell he was unsettled Henry would talk one look at him and just _know._ That’s what happened when you’ve known someone since you were twelve years old he supposed.

They saw through the bullshit and all those little tells and shit you could hide from strangers who didn’t know the real you from _Adam_. Sometimes it was great, being known like that, and other times not so much.

It was too confusing with Henry right now. Walt knew he needed some time to get his head on straight before he ought to go stepping a foot in his friend's bar. He’d started something he hadn’t finished, he would though, he just needed a little more time to wrap his head around where this was all going first. Henry would understand and even if he didn’t Walt knew he could talk him around when it came down to it -- just not right now.

Walt was good at that when it came to Henry, bringing him around to his way of thinking. _Usually_ , Walt added on because he could be damn pessimistic when things started looking too good to be true. 

He wanted a break from these strange dreams and sleepless nights, he wanted to march down to the _Red Pony_ and...there were a lot of things he wanted presently, but he couldn’t. Not hyped up on coffee and nerves, tangled in the net of a bad dream like something out of _Dante_. He’d make a fool of himself in front of every drunk cognizant enough to realize and he didn’t need that kind of press. 

“I’m fine Ruby, really,” he said, mentally shaking off the remnants of emotion that his dreams had left him with. Just thinking of them, of that damned bear bleeding out alone on a snow capped mountain left him with a muted horror, cold hands wrapping around his heart and _squeezing_. 

“Okay, okay,” Ruby said, throwing up her hands, “you say your fine, then your fine.”

Walt paused, looking down at the bearing standing at the river bank and felt uncommonly cold. His heart jack-hammering in his chest. Wolves. He’d dreamed of wolves and they had devoured Henry whole.

_No, not Henry, the bear dammit,_ Walt thought to himself. It was not hard for him to make the connection. Walt had been thinking of Henry a lot, it was only natural for his dreams to cry havoc. 

Walt groaned, rubbing the heel of his hand across his face. Henry was fine, he was working the evening shift today at the _Red Pony_. His hand reached for the landline phone gathering dust on the corner of his desk. He wanted to call him, to hear him answer with the line his bar had become known for in two counties. 

_It is another beautiful day_

_and continual soiree_

_at the Red Pony. This is Henry_

_speaking._

Walt curled his hand and let it drop, the phone untouched, dust motes undisturbed. And then what? He wasn’t some kind of lovesick boy, a creeping _Edward Cullen_ ringing up his...best friend?...lover?...partner?...just to hear him speak. _No, to stalkery,_ Walt thought even as his hand itched to do it and to hell with it. He curled his hand into a fist and shook his head tiredly. He needed to refocus on the case right now. Mandy Hall’s would-be-kidnapper was still on the loose in his county. Bad dreams could wait. He had time to figure out what the hell that had been about when he wasn’t on the clock. 

Walter scrubbed at his face deciding he needed a shave. This thing with Henry could wait. They had plenty of time to work it out. Whatever it was. _Later._

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This revision took me _forever_ and I am still unsatisfied. Thought's [if you wish to leave them] are welcome.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walt is racing against the clock and nothing is going to get in his way.

_Present Day:_

_Absaroka, Wyoming_

  
  
  


Time was a fickle mistress; one minute a man was led to believe he had it in rich supply and the next it was trickling down the hourglass. It was law enforcements’ worst enemy in kidnapping cases because trails were liable to go cold and suspects would disappear like ghosts into the next city over across the state line but this was one fight Walt refused to lose. Time, odds, and anything else looking to get in his way could fuck right off to sunny down South. It wasn’t just his duty to catch this son of a bitch it would be his genuine pleasure to look the man in the eyes before putting him six feet under. Although the law might take exception to that, wouldn't it? He couldn’t keep wearing this badge if he killed a man in cold blood. 

Walt put that notion on the back burner, first he had to find the suspect. He reckoned that the God he’d prayed to for Henry’s safe return might take exception, too. He still remembers his Sunday school days with Pastor Thomas as a boy, it was spelled out clearly enough in the 6th Commandment that _thou shall not kill_. Walt didn’t suppose Pastor Thomas’ God made exceptions for those men who reveled in bloodshed and rape but that was neither here not there, not until Henry was safe. After that he’d decide what needed to be done and what commandments needed breaking.

Walt had no personal stake in the Lord’s teachings but down here in the muck, far from anything celestial, he couldn’t in good conscience turn the other cheek. Evil wasn’t some ephemeral boogey-man hiding beneath the bed. It walked among men, it inhabited them in the form of greed, lust, and apathy and if no one stood up it would keep on walking spreading its corruption like a venereal disease among the community, _his_ community.

Evil was real enough, it was the idea that took hold sinking its teeth in deep, wearing down the human psyche whispering all the while, _‘it’s okay, you can steal from the bank the people won’t lose their money they’re insured,’_ hissing, _‘it’s okay, you can do that -- what did she think going out in that skirt.’_ No, evil wasn’t some abstract notion to Walt. He saw it in the eyes of domestic abusers, murderers, and child-killers. He remembered his church-going lessons in bygone days but it didn’t change the fact that there were some men that needed killing.

If the justice of this world was perfect his wife's murderer would have been caught, tried, and executed but that wasn’t how it had happened.

No matter how much Walt believed in the law he’d spent his life upholding he knew it to be imperfect at the best of times and something that could be rigged in the favor of bad men if their pockets were deep enough at the worst. _‘Thou shall not kill’_ Pastor Thomas had said, his expression grave and his clouded grey eyes filled with absolute conviction as though the world were black and white and not made up of the many shades of gray that it’s average, law abiding citizens had to navigate. Walt didn’t think pipe-thin Pastor Thomas had ever held the cold, dead body of a 12 year old girl killed by her meth-head father.

Or watched as her mother, hopped up on drugs, walked by her corpse as though she were nothing at all.

No, somehow he does not think Pastor Thomas had done any of that but Walt had and it left deep, gouging marks in the process.

There had been justice for that little girl but there were plenty others that never darkened the grandiose Halls of Justice with their sad, broken bodies; forgotten or swept aside because they weren’t newsworthy or American enough to warrant the hubbub of a media frenzy. Walt knew the shortcomings of the law but it was his job to see that the right thing was done and if sometimes the _right_ thing required knocking skulls together and sending another body to the morgue that was a price he could live with. He’d be held accountable when his ticket came due and he would walk into that judgment with a righteous conscience knowing that he’d done the best he could in an imperfect world. _That_ was the burden he took up every morning when he pinned the shiny tin-star to his chest, which served as a walking target and a tangible reminder to himself about his duty to the people of Absaroka. It wasn’t just his job to keep them safe, it was his _duty_.

It cut him up inside whenever he failed, and he had failed this time no two ways about it. He felt a dangerous kind of anger rise up even thinking about some man putting hands on Henry against his will. It made him sick. So for now he held on to the faint thread of hope that he had this figured all wrong. A case of him shoving his feet into old boots that no longer fit right. Just this once, he’d like to be proven wrong. Walt didn’t think he was reading it wrong but he could hope. 

As for Pastor Thomas, well, he was a long way from his bygone Sunday school days. He’d do what needed doing when the hour was at hand. All would be well with his soul in the end, Walt was sure at least of that much. 

Filled with determination Walt ploughed forward, never looking back.

Having a face to pin to the crime sure would help him narrow the field of search. Knowing where the suspect went to high school even more so and that damn grey _Wolverines, West Yellowstone High_ sweater that tied together the two, no _three_ , cases indicated a probable age range of early twenties to thirty. While he ran down leads around town Ruby was getting in contact with the Montana school’s principal; Mr. Conwell had been running the high school for the last nine years which meant there was a fair chance he knew something useful. Walt felt he and his deputies were taking pot-shots at shadows in the dark right now waiting to see if any landed on target.

Unwilling to remain stationary Walt lit out of the station like a bloodhound hot on a trail. Stuck in his head was the last place he should be and he knew it like a bear knew the scent of a fresh kill. He had to keep moving to stay afloat of the thoughts nagging at him. Sharks were the same, if they stopped swimming they lost their ability to breathe. Walt felt a bit like them at the moment, he was okay so long as he kept moving.

Ruby was taking the lead on questioning Mr. Conwell and he was double glad for that fact. How did a person ask a principle which of his students he thought was capable of kidnapping and sexual assault? Walt shook his head, he just didn’t know, there was too damn much he didn’t know some days. It was unlikely the suspect was up there in years if he still fit into his old high school clothes. Walt might still have his old high school jersey, somewhere at the bottom of a dusted over drawer that never saw sunlight, but he sure as hell didn’t peacock around town in it.

It wasn't becoming of a sheriff to ruminate over old childhood victories for one thing, it didn’t fit proper for another. Henry may have been right about him needing to exercise more, chasing criminals just wasn’t the workout it used to be in Sheriff Lucien’s day. Mostly they were slow and stupid which had made his job a whole lot easier for spell. Might have also landed him with some excess baggage he really should do something about.

He wasn’t above admitting that if he was going to be sweating up bedsheets with _Henry Standing Bear_ in the future he wanted to do it a few pounds lighter. Walt realized he was taking a lot on faith but he felt certain he could put things right between them -- things weren’t so wrong that that bridge had been washed out. It just needed some fine tuning, same as his diet apparently.

It was just his shitty luck that criminals had to go and grow bigger brains for the kidnapping of his best friend. Personally, he preferred when they had been slow and stupid even if it had lead to an extra hole gouged in his belt. He’d lay good odds the suspect was a young man in his late twenties with a face that women liked looking at. It was not often in Walt’s line of work that the bad guys actually wore black hats like these did in cinematic movies or old westerns, oftentimes they looked like nice, normal, upstanding citizens, right until the moment they stuck a knife in another man's back when he wasn’t looking.

Kidnappings in general tended to revolve around four keystone’s ransom’s, personal vendettas, human trafficking, or rape. Ms. Hall being such a lovely woman, there wasn’t much doubt left in Walt’s mind that her would-be kidnapper wanted something more from her than her phone number but human trafficking was more of a Big City problem. People in small towns with lower population counts tended to take notice, and grievous offence, when their own people started being picked off. _No, there hasn’t been any of those dealing around here lately,_ Walt thought as he circled back to personal vendetta and rape.

Now he was well aware that rape wasn’t something that just happened to women but the statistics leaned heavily towards victims being female on that particular brand of violence. That, and either the victim was released after the assault was completed or they were killed their bodies dumped somewhere off the map. But he was short a body so working from that assumption Walt had to presume his friend was still alive out there somewhere, Walt just had to find him. He had to believe that or he’d be a lot less okay than he already was.

Until he had proof he was working under the presumption of life, it was the only way he could do his job.

It bugged the hell out of him that he still couldn’t figure out why Henry had been taken specifically. Walt had a few notions. of course, but he didn’t like any of them too much. Henry was the complete antithesis of Ms. Hall who had been the first victim to come forward. 

Ms. Hall was all California Girl blond right down to her pink manicured fingernails and her Western twang. Henry was distinctly Cheyenne, dark skinned, dark eyed, older than Ms. Hall right down to the faint scatter of grey at his temples which wasn't all that noticeable unless a person had reason to be leaning into his personal breathing space, and of course he was a man.

Walt was too tangled up in his own feelings to be completely subjective but he figured Henry was still a handsome guy to some, if not many people of both persuasions, a testament supported by the fact that not all the eyes that tracked Henry when he was working the bar were female.

Being Cheyenne made Henry seem like a low risk target to criminals on account of his non-white ethnicity but the suspect took a bigger risk attacking a 167 pound man than a petite woman who couldn't be more than 60 pounds soaking wet, which begged the question why the change in victimology? Walt sighed. It was possible Ms. Hall was just in the wrong place at the exact _wrong_ time.

Maybe she wasn’t the suspect’s preferred type at all.

Which meant that Henry was the right type. Possibly. Assuming this crime had a sexual component, and he wasn’t sure about that one yet, he didn’t want to be sure about that angle just yet -- but it was possible. Which also meant that Walt’s suspect was either gay or bisexual, and most likely harbored some kind of fetish for people with a non-white ethnic heritage. Walt had seen the kind before.

_Possibly, maybe, dammit, I don’t like all this guessing, I need facts!_ Walt thought to himself. If he’d known about the sweater that connected events maybe it would have changed things sooner. Dammit! It didn’t matter. What was done, was done. He’d just have to make the difference up by not fumbling the ball at the half-mark. Having gone from zero suspects to more than he could handle with two corroborating witness testimonies gave Walt a place to start. He could make this work. He had done more with less in the past. He had caught the son of a bitch’s scent now. 

Hunting fever was racing in his blood but his head was cool. This suspect was as good as caught, the rest was details. It was only a matter of time. Walt strode over to the _Milton's General Store_ which had been in the Milton family for over three generations. Walt knew that when Johnathon Milton had taken over the running of the business he had installed quality security to keep any down-on-their-luck types from thinking to make easy cash on his dime. He bet if the security camera was a bust that Mary saw something even if she didn’t know the particulars. She had a crush on Henry the size of Texas that she’d been nursing since high school.

Walt had never figured out if Henry was oblivious to her feelings or just being kind when she fumbled her way through awkward conversation and tame come-ons at the _Red Pony_ . Walt suspects she’d have had better luck if she’d dispensed with the tameness and just gone for what she wanted outright. Might have gotten her a night of fun to remember later if she played her cards right.

He happened to know for a fact that Henry had a weakness for strong women.

_And my hat,_ Walt mused with a note of nostalgia softening the sting of the past memories rising to the surface. They’d had themselves some nights, him and Henry. The kind that would have made _Casanova_ blush. 

Walt pushed the door to Milton's store in with enough force that the bell jangled, sharp and bright. “Mary, Johnathon, I need to have a word.” 

“It’s important,” he said, meeting their eyes directly and with a sweeping gesture motioned toward the back office where they could have a private word. 

“Of course, sheriff. What can we do for you today?” Johnathan asked, a furrow digging between his brows. 

“I need to ask to see your footage, any cameras with a view of the _Red Pony_ to be exact. It would have been three weeks ago,” Walt said, holding up a hand to forestall any legal hum-drum Johnathon was going to enact. 

Walt held out the photo of his suspect to Mary. “I’m trying to locate Henry Standing Bear and I need your help. Have you seen this man in the store or around town?” 

Mary’s face when corpse white, her hand clamped over her mouth in shock. “Dad, you’ll give Sheriff Walt Longmire what he needs won’t you? The man seems familiar, but I can hardly be sure - we get a lot of customers you know, and it’s been a while. I just can’t be sure,” Mary admitted and there was a film of tears in her brown eyes. 

Walt gave her a moment to gather herself while her father shifted closer, awkwardly patting her shoulder in consolation. 

Jonathan was clearly uncomfortable with her show of feminine emotions as he quickly busied himself with taking the photo from her shaking hands and squinted down at it through his steel-gray, bi-focal wire-frame glasses. 

“He’s a good man, Henry.” Jonathan finally said, “I’ll help in any way I can, of course, it’s only right. My daughter is correct however, we have had a lot of people walk through those doors. I pride myself on knowing my regulars but, well, I can’t say that I know every face as well as I should,” Jonathan admitted with a tired sigh. 

“Whatever you do, don’t get old Walt. It's a plain nuisance,” Johnathan said startling a laugh from Walt who found himself smiling in spite of the black mood dogging his steps. 

“Well now, I think that ship has left port,” Walt said.

Johnathan snorted and ushered Walt into his office which was a small room with pale turquoise walls, an authentic cedar wood computer desk, a tan filing cabinet and a landline phone hooked to the wall. There was hardly room enough for two men to strand comfortably but Walt wasn’t going to order Mary around in her own store. 

Johnathan waved him over. “Well, come on then, sheriff. Let’s have a look at what I’ve been paying for.”

“This would have been back to three weeks ago,” Walt said as Jonathon typed away on the keyboard. 

“There, that’s him -- that’s the suspect,” Walt said watching as the man he was tracking loitered outside the _Red Pony_ , throwing his bud-lite bottle on the ground when he’d finished. 

Walt ground his teeth. He hated litterers. 

Three minutes later Henry exited the bar with his back to the street as he lugged a garbage bin out the door. 

“Shit,” Walt said.

Henry had left himself wide open for ambush with his back to the street. Walts’ suspect took one look at Henry’s vulnerable back and like the coward he was struck out by grabbing him in a choke hold. 

Henry put up a damn good fight but the other man was bigger, meaner. The two bodies on the screen hit pavement hard, Henry pinned under his assailant who knocked him out cold with a single blow to the temple. 

“Hell of a thing to happen, right outside his own door...right outside my store too,” Johnathan muttered. “Hell of a thing.”

Johnathan squinted, leaning forward into the screen. 

“Johnathan?” Walt asked, going completely motionless with anticipation. The older man clicked his tongue shaking his head. 

“Well, I’ll be damned. I do know that face, I’m sorry to say. He’s been through here a few times…” Johnathan paused and Walt did not miss the surreptitious glance towards Mary who was still standing quiet as a mouse and pale in the doorway.

“Sugar, I heard the front door, won’t you check for me?” he asked.

Mary nodded, composing herself with a sunny-smile for her waiting customers and made her way to the store entrance her stride confident and pleasant. If she knew her father wanted to speak with Walt privately she didn’t let it show. Walt might never have known she’d been crying if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. 

With a swish of her skirt she disappeared from view leaving the two men alone. 

“He always bought condoms, canned goods and foods that could be microwaved or cooked on a grill. That and _Marlboro_ cigarettes,” Johnathon explained, having abandoned the security footage to pull up a record of sales. “That struck me as strange -- the boy didn’t stink like ash and smoke the way a-pack-a-day users do.”

“He was buying them for someone else, someone that’s staying with him maybe,” Walt muttered more to himself than Johnathan as a clearer picture began to crystallize. 

Walt paced, treading over the same brown strip of carpet with his fist under his chin as he thought. His suspect bought cigarettes from Milton's but he didn’t smoke, canned food, and condoms. He was highly impulsive, the attack on Mandy Hall proved that much but it remained unclear if the suspect had been waiting to confront Henry after hours or if he merely made use of the opportunity fortune provided.

Walt's suspect number had just doubled, he wasn't looking for one son of a bitch. He was looking for two men and possibly a woman. What were the chances that one of the men had gotten a girlfriend involved? He knew he was grasping at straws throwing an unknown female into the mix but if the condoms weren’t for a girlfriend then there was a high probability that this was going to be a kidnapping _and_ sexual assault crime.

Walt rubbed the bridge of his nose, there was a pink elephant in the room he didn’t want to consider before but he had little choice now. He slammed his hand against the wall.

Johnathan startled, backpedaling a few steps.

Walt blew out a harsh breath. _Shit, there’s no wiggling around the facts now -- two male kidnappers, long term captivity, condoms, and Henry? I can’t imagine how this isn’t going to turn out to be a rape crime. I wish...I wish I could. Wouldn’t it be something if there is a girlfriend involved -- I don’t think either of us have ever had that kind of luck,_ Walt thought to himself dread pooling in his gut. The only good thing about this turn was he had a better idea of why Henry might still be alive. Barring one of the suspects being a necrophiliac he still had a shot at finding Henry alive but time was running out.

Walt could feel the hourglass in his head bleeding sand with each second. _Tick-tock_ and another moment wasted as Henry teetered between living and dying. 

“Here, I made some coffee,” Mary said, startling Walt from his thoughts. He hadn’t even noticed her quietly slipping back into the room with two mugs held out in her hands. 

“Oh, uh, thanks,” Walt said and downed his fifth cup of coffee of the day. By now he had more caffeine in his veins than blood. 

Walt stopped pacing when Johnathan huffed out a small breath. “There you are!” Johnathan exclaimed his narrowed gaze startling in its intensity, “I have a name for you, sheriff.” 

Walts lip curled in a feral smile, white teeth glinting in a wild bearing of fangs. If he kept pulling at threads eventually he’d find the _right_ one, the one that would lead him straight to Henry Standing Bear. 

Walt stared down at the suspects name and when he spoke his words were a rumbled growl. “Mitch Holden.” 

“Go get your man, Walt” Johnathan said. 

Walt almost dropped the mug he was holding and decided he had definitely had too much caffeine and not enough food. Johnathan was talking about Holden, of course, but addled by caffeine and the rushing anger burning up his blood that wasn’t how Walt had heard it. Wasn’t how Walt _wanted_ it, either.

“Right, thanks” Walt said, numbly handing off his empty mug and strode out of _Milton's General Store_ with less force than he’s slammed in with. Stepping out onto the pavement Walt looked up at the sun shining down and cutting holes through the grey thunderclouds threatening rain. Walt tipped back his Stetson letting the faint warmth hit his face. It was a good day for a hunt.

Walt caught sight of his deputy. Ferg was jogging toward him, red faced and eager. “Ruby, Ruby found something,” he gasped out, hands on his knees as he stopped, dragging in a lungful of air. High tension levels and anxiety could increase breathing rates and, often, lead to hyperventilation when a person exhaled more than they inhaled, swallowing an excess of air. 

Ferg was going to give himself aerophagia if he kept that up.

“Talking with Mr. Conwell was a bust. Ruby spoke to her book club, just in case? And showed the photo around because they meet up at the _Half-Moon Cafe_ , see a lot of people come and go, you know?” Ferg said talking so fast his words ran together. 

Walt didn’t speak but the steely look he had fixed on Ferg encouraged him to come to his point. “Anyhow, her gal-pal Sue spoke to a man that looked like our suspect. His name is Mitch Holden, that’s the good news. The bad news is that he doesn't have a fixed address.”

Ferg gulped another lungful of cold air wiping the sweat beaded on his forehead. “Ruby, however, is an angel. She talked to someone who had talked to someone else...you know how it is in small towns? Point is, Holland Fayne saw him check into Motel 6, some weeks back.”

“Okay, Ferg, tell Ruby that was some good detective work. Maybe I should give _her_ that badge,” Walt said flicking the copper tin star and Ferg went red right up to his ears. 

“Keep asking around, Ferg. Talk to the DMV and see if we can’t get a lock on a vehicle for Holden. Put out a BOLO on this son of a bitch, too.”

“Got it,” Ferg said, pulling out his phone and walking away, “I’ll let you know when I get something.”

“Hey! Watch where you’re goin’, deputy.”

Ferg put a hand over the speaker and looked up. “Oh, sorry, man. I didn’t see you,” Ferg said to the man he’d almost shoulder-checked in his rush to get moving. “I’ll buy you a drink down at the _Red Pony_ next time I see you, again, sorry, man.” 

“I’ll take that deal,” the man said laughing. “No harm done, deputy. You have a good day now,” the man said, tipping his ball-cap and crushing the butt of his cigarette under his boot heel. 

Ferg nodded absently, “thanks, you too, man.”

Walt observed the exchange for a moment. He didn’t recognize the man, but then, he did not actually know every soul in his county. It would probably make his job easier if he _did_ . The gears turning in Walt's head turn back to the case and he’s left wondering if he ought to know why Fayne remembered Mitch Holden. Running into a stranger at a motel three weeks ago? At least he knew where to find Holland, he worked the 8-5 shift at _Beards & Shears _. 

Walt ran his hand over the stubbly bristles shadowing his jaw and decided he needed a shave. 

Good thing he knew a place and maybe he and Holland could have a little chat, too. Before leaving he snagged the cigarette off the floor and threw it into the green barrel shaped garbage can. He never could see why people felt the need to just throw things on the floor, it didn’t take much effort to put things where they belonged and cigarettes belonged in the trash.

“Well, look who the cat dragged in, Sheriff Longmire,” Holland said steering Walt to a free seat as though they weren’t all empty. It was lunch hour so they had the place to themselves for the moment. “A little birdy told me you would be visiting.” 

“A red, ruby-shaped birdy, I assume.” Walt studied the other man and decided he looked better now than the last time he’d seen him, drunk off his ass making a public nuisance of himself. 

“You’re looking well.”

“I feel well,” Holland readily agreed. “Sobriety suits me, and is better for my liver. Or so my doctor tells me. I have you and Henry to thank for that. I have not forgotten.”

Holland closed the door behind Walt and flipped the sign to ‘closed’ before pulling out a chair and seating himself across from Walt. “Ask your questions.”

Walt didn’t let his surprise at Holland's boldness show on his face. “Holland, can you tell me why you remember Mitch Holden and his short lived residence at Motel 6?” Walt asked watching as the man across from him closed his eyes in resignation. 

Holland tied his raven-black hair back in a pony-tail with a leather tie. A nervous tic he’d learned from his father. Holland could thank his mother, Sarah Little Deer, for his swarthy good looks. He had her dark, deep-set eyes. Walt could see them lose some of their bright animation with the mention of Holden. 

“You’re not in any trouble that I can see, but I’m working a case and you might have the answers I need. That’s all,” Walt said hoping to set the other man at ease.

Holland drew in a sharp breath. “We were having sex, that is how I knew him, that is how I knew where he was staying.” 

“Same-sex, uh, affairs have been legal in Wyoming since February 1977,” Walt said to break the silence after Hollands confession. “But I’m sure you know that already.”

“Do you know where I can find Mitch now, Holland?” Walt asked, leaning forward to bridge the distance between them. “He’s got himself into something and the only way this ends peacefully is if I can bring him in.”

“You think I would protect him? No, you have this all wrong Walt,” Holland growled surging out of his seat, temper flaring hotly in denial. 

“Okay, okay, tell me how it is. You said you owed Henry, well it’s time to make good on that debt and help me find Mitch,” Walt said swivelling his chair to face the other man who stood in the middle of the shop with his arms fisted at his hips, nostrils flaring and breath puffing like an angry bull.

“Henry? What does Henry...Oh,” Holland said and suddenly all the anger drained right out of him leaving his dark skin pallid and washed-out under the shop's halogen lights. 

“Oh fuck,” Holland muttered covering his face with his hand as he collapsed into a chair like a marionette with its strings rudly cut. 

“Whatever you’re thinking? You need to tell me _now_ , Holland,” Walt said, snapping his fingers in Holland's face when he remained unresponsive. 

“Hey! Talk to me, okay?” Walt said crouching in front of Holland who had rested his head in his hands. “I don’t have time for this, you need to get it together.”

“I cannot help you and I am sorry, Walt. I broke it off with Mitch five weeks ago, he became obsessed with...he became intense in a way I no longer enjoyed,” Holland folded his arms across his chest and leaned away from Walt adopting a clearly defensive posture. 

“No, see you’re wrong, there’s things you know, things you might know, important things that could help me get to the bottom of this,” Walt explained. He backed up two paced to give Holland more space letting him relax without Walt's looming.

“Holden was staying at Motel 6 but what room, do you remember?” Walt asked and paused before asking his next question, which allowed Holland time to think. “And when you two, um, hooked-up, did he ever mention other people? Friends?” 

“It was room sixteen. The doorknob was a constant annoyance - it had to be jiggled and shoved hard to open. We discovered early quiet entrances were not possible,” Holland said with a sad, wistful smile that quickly faded. “Friends? I cannot say for sure, talking was not our strong suit. Mitch got a ride back with someone named Hank, no, Hector, a time or two because his truck kept breaking down and money was tight.”

“Okay, that’s good. You said before that Holden became obsessed, what was he obsessing over?” Walt asked, pausing when Holland's eyes flicked away, down. _Deflecting._

“Or should I ask, who? Oh,” Walt said and felt like cursing a shit ton of fuck’s himself at this revelation.

_Fuck, fuck, fuck._ This right here had been what he’d been afraid of, and here was confirmation staring him in the face. Holden had a thing for Indian men.

Walt did not like the direction this case was taking but he had to see it through. Why hadn’t Holland said anything? If not him the sheriff, then to Henry. A suspect with Indian fetishization who had kidnapped the object of his desire? _The son of a bitch is probably alone with Henry right now...the suspects have been alone with Henry for three weeks and there’s no changing that now._ Walt ground his teeth hard enough that his gums ached as he shoved his personal feelings aside, digging deeper into his analysis. Henry was older than Holland but factoring in the psychological cross-race effect which made it difficult for people to accurately ID those of another racial group an emotional transference could have happened.

A sudden break-up would increase the likelihood of Holden acting on his fixation. Fuck. Walt felt his gorge rise, sickness curdling his belly. Suddenly a suspect buying condoms at the _Milton's General Store_ didn’t seem so innocent. As if it had ever been. 

“It was Henry. Mitch fixated on Henry.” Walt snarled, grabbing Holland by the jacket and yanking him to his feet. Walt held him in place by the collar of his shirt, giving him a rough shake as though Holland were a disobedient pup. 

“And you didn’t think to mention? Why? You were embarrassed, afraid, what? Tell me, make me understand how you couldn't say a Goddamn thing!” 

Walt snarled wordlessly and shoved the younger man away in disgust. “If anything happens to Henry...” 

Walt didn’t finish his sentence and he didn’t need to. 

Holland slumped against the wall the picture of abject misery. “Is this why Henry has not been at the _Red Pony_? Shit! Walt, be reasonable. How could I know Mitch would -- would actually do something?” Holland asked, his eyes, so dark and troubled with emotion begging Walt to understand.

“I don’t suppose you could,” Walt conceded, his face still set in an ill-tempered scowl. “I know that, that the, uh, kind of relationship you were involved in with Holden might have had something to do with your not wanting to say anything to anybody. I understand Holland, I do. But I still would’ve thought you knew I wasn’t _that_ kind of bastard.”

Holland sighed, “I know that, sheriff. But there are some things that are not so easy to share. Still, you are Henry Standing Bear's oldest and best friend, I should have trusted you.” 

“Yeah, you should've,” Walt said and brushed past Holland. He didn’t have it in him to be any kinder than that. Holland had let fear rule him and it might cost Henry his life, if not that it was still going to cost. 

Henry had been gone for three weeks. Assuming he was still alive there was no way the man was going to walk out of this without some serious scarring. 

Walt paused at the door, looking back at the young man watching him walk away with sad dark eyes. For a split second a vision struck Walt and Holland’s image was overlaid with Henry’s. 

Walt’s heart softened and the heat of his anger sputtered down to smoldering embers.

“I will find him, and that’s a promise,” Walt said and without another word left the establishment without ever looking back but he could feel Holland’s eyes on him the whole time. 

He got into the _Bronco_ quietly shutting the door. He had a name, a face, and a motive, three more pieces than he’d had when he’d rolled into town four hours ago. 

The picture forming in his head was almost complete and it was ugly but he refused to overlook a single detail in his head-long rush into finding Henry. All of this was on him. _His_ fault. He’d stuck his head in the sand and called it duty. Afraid to confront this thing sparking up again between him and Henry at the _Red Pony_ late one night. It had been the easiest thing in the world, letting late-night wanting spill over into action.

Walt could blame too much alcohol and not enough restraint but that was a flat out lie. He had just _wanted_ , consequences be damned.

When the hot fervor of passion dissipated and he was staring up at the ceiling with a warm, strong body pressed against his side he started thinking and worrying as reality set in. He and Henry had had sex and it had been a hell of a good time but it was more than that, too. It was always more with Henry.

That was that part that had Walt turning circles in his head. The last time they’d touched like this there had been three people in the bed and now there were two men and the ghost of what once was hanging over his head like the _Sword of Damocles_. He hadn’t been ready.

Walt only realized what he should have done later, _‘I’m sorry, this happened too fast’_ that’s it. Henry wouldn’t have pushed for more than he could give, Walt knew that. It wasn’t in his nature. That would have done the job. Instead he chose the path of least resistance pretending it never happened. It was not the worst decision of his life, but it was up there in the Top 10. 

Walt didn’t know what Henry thought because he never asked, quietly let himself out of the room while the other man slept. It had been an underhanded thing to do. Slipping down the stairs quiet as a mouse, skipping the fourth step that always creaked. Sneaking out the back door as if they’d done something wrong, something dirty. That hadn’t been it at all but Walt figured that was how Henry took it. He knew it was how he might have seen it had the shoe been on the other foot. Leaving things like that between them afraid the night they’d shared? It was one of the stupider decisions he’d made. 

Some Sherlock he’d proven. The spirit world had been talking to him. Whispering _‘danger!’_ and the whole while he’d deafened his ears and why? Because he was a coward, afraid of letting himself feel, afraid if he opened that door he’d fall right back into old habits and his best friend's bed. 

It was the easiest thing and the hardest, wanting Henry. He was most himself when it was _Walt and Henry --_ being _Walt and Henry and Martha_ had come easy as breathing but he’d been down that road and it had cost him so he’d closed his eyes, but he couldn’t close them now. He was haunted by dream visions that wouldn’t let him sleep that leave him feeling cold and numb inside. He’d wake up alone in his bed feeling hollowed out, like someone had taken a peeler to an apple and cored out the middle, except it was not an apple, it was his insides that had been gutted. 

Everything inside his head was laid bare on the outside, everything he should have done exposed to open air. He carried bitter regret, cradling it to his chest even as it gnawed at his heart. They were his burden to carry now. 

He should have asked God for more. Walt concedes maybe it wasn’t his place to ask for anything at all seeing as he’s not a devout Sunday church attendee these days. He's not sure what the protocol would be in these matters, or for a person of his diverse beliefs. People prayed all the time, to all kinds of Higher Powers, for all kinds of reasons. Walt didn’t imagine there was anything inherently wrong with praying for Henry now. He’d like to believe that those unknowable Higher Powers of the world would, in their infinite wisdom, understand his very human situation. 

Henry. His...best friend?...lover?...partner?...The only man he’d ever loved like _this_ , was gone and the hard fact was he’d kneel at any altar, sacrifice to any God if it shifted the wind in his favor just this once. Henry disappearing from his life was not acceptable -- there were a lot of things Walt knew that he couldn’t change but he refused to allow this to be counted among them. Henry dying before him was not something Walt was prepared to deal with. It was not okay, nothing would ever be okay in his world if that happened. 

He was the sheriff, dammit. If anyone was going to journey into that black night and the eternal mystery of the final rest it was him. All he’d asked of God was that Henry be alive. He wanted Henry to be so much more than that. 

Henry deserved so much more than that, too. 

But alive would be good enough. It was a place to start. God willing, Walt was prepared to spend the rest of his life making this right. 

_Don’t be dead, that’s all I ask. Please, Henry, I……._ Walt thought, wishing that he could reach out across the distance and speak to his friend -- tell him everything he’d been too afraid to say that night as Henry slept beside him. He knew what he really wanted to say, the soft words he held back, behind his teeth and wrapped around his heart in sparking silver cords that would never unravel. Yes.

Walt knew what he should have said now that there’s no one but the ghosts in his head to listen. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walt unearths clues and makes a few epiphanies along the way. Meanwhile Henry Standing Bear drifts betwixt and between the past and the present as he deals with the dark turn handed down by fate.

_Absaroka, Wyoming_

_Present:_

Walt pulled into the deserted Motel 6 parking lot, his rumbling stomach satisfied with the over-cooked burger Sal fried up for him at the _Half-Moon_ _Café_. Stepping foot into Henry’s bar for food wasn’t worth poking the rattler curled up inside him, just waiting to sink venom in his veins. He couldn’t deal with that shit, not with leads to follow. If he fell down that rabbit hole he’d never climb his way out. He’d take Sal’s over-cooked steak and salty fries, thanks. He was a damn sight relieved that there was only one _Motel 6_ in Absaroka. He hadn’t even thought to ask before leaving Holland alone with his guilt for company. Walt hoped what the kid had done kept him up on long nights and he didn’t care if that was mean-spirited. Holland was living proof all this could have been cut off the pass. 

_If -- if could I’d go back to that night and, well, I’d enjoy the hell out of making that damn bed squeak. If I could I’d remember every look, evey touch, every kiss as though it was to be the last, I’d...kiss ‘em breathless, deep and filthy how he likes - I’d let my body say what I can’t seem to spit out. If I could go back, I’d do it like that, dammit. I’d do it over proper,_ Walt thought to himself, unconsciously licking his lips as his breath grew heavy and his pulse raced.

Thinking on Henry in that way had the bad habit of making him go a little stupid in the head, blood rushing in his ears, and his skin going tingly-tight with desire. Shit. He wished people were allotted at least one do-over in their life. Walt knew how he’d cash his, a night that began with bright red LED lights, alcohol burning up his veins, and strong hands locked around his back as Walt chased the taste of whiskey on Henry's tongue. Walt tightened his hands on the steering-wheel, bitter-sweet regret washing over him in a cold-shock that dimmed the southerly rush of his blood flow. Damned if it hadn't taken a swift kick in the pants for him to wake up and smell the coffee; dark, strong, with an aftertaste of sugar. 

Walt pulled into the parking space, killed the engine and turned around. The manager of the hotel was waiting at the door. He was a tall and lanky man in his late forties, salt and pepper hair thinning into a widows peak. Walt didn’t know his name but he’d seen the man hitting on waitresses at the _Red Pony_ once or twice, always struck out with the women. He had a suspicious look about him but that could be due to the cannabis Walt could smell on his breath. 

Nothing like a lawman rolling up to make a man with a habit start fidgeting.

Walt approached in a lazy stroll examining the lot and a few transients peeking from behind cheap polyester window curtains. 

“Relax, sir,” Walt said, stopping at a respectable distance but close enough that he could keep an eye on his twitchy hands. “I’m only here following a suspect. You might remember him, Mitch Holden. Handsome fella, by all accounts -”

The tall man snorted and spat on the pavement, looking down his thin, tapering nose with those three inches of height he had on Walt. 

“How would I know, sheriff? I’m no queer.”

Walt ignored the man’s blatant attempt at intimidation. He had been looked down at by much bigger and far meaner customers in his time. A tall, skinny motel manager he could break over his knee like a rotted twig wasn’t going to make him sweat. 

“Okay, so you do remember him then. Did he have any friends that would hang around, loiter in the parking lot? Any nuisance complaints?” 

“Only person I ever saw around was that Cheyenne man he was fooling with,” the manager said, his lip curling sourly which made his already unpleasant features more unfortunate. “Would have never known he was that sort to look at him. Either of them, really.” 

“Just to be clear you mean Holland Fayne right?” Walt asked, watching as the managers head bobbed in agreement. “He looks a fair bit like the other Indian fellow who owns that bar, what’s it called... _The Pony_? Good burgers there.”

“Uh-huh, the _Red Pony_ ,” Walt automatically corrected. 

He didn’t bother pointing out that Holland Fayne and Henry Standing Bear didn’t look at all similar with the exception of darker complected skin and even darker eyes, black as the sky on starless nights. 

Walt had always thought Henry’s eyes slanted back at the corners more giving him a permanent look of sharp animation, black chips of obsidian if Walt was feeling poetic. 

Fayne had his mother's big, brown doe eyes. 

Soft. 

Walt kept his observations to himself. “Okay, I’ll need to have a look at your security footage from November, and when Holden was in residence.” 

The tall man rocked back on his heels, scratching his ear reluctantly. 

Walt leveled the man with a hard stare. “I can get a warrant if that’s how you want to play this. But I don’t think it is, is it?” 

“It’s not that, sheriff. Security cameras have been busted for a while. I was going to fix it just never seemed to get around to it. People don’t stay at _Motel 6’s_ ‘ause they want to be, um, recorded, watched, 24/7 you know?” the manager shuffled on his feet, chewing on his bottom lip.

“Who paid you to not fix the cameras?” Walt asked, reclaiming the space he had given the man until they were standing uncomfortably close. Walt could smell it when the manager's deodorant wiped out, leaving him stinking of fear. 

“I don’t know, honest! Hell, it’s not like he walked up and introduced himself or anything. I was going to do it anyway after a few weeks but...there was just something about the man, like he was on a hair trigger or something? I had intended to fix ‘em anyhow. But…” the manager shrugged, “guess I really should have.”

Walt didn’t say anything about intentions and the road to hell, just curled his lip in disgust. Here was another roadblock in his missing person case and there was no way of knowing if it was related to his or was some other bastard trying to sneak one by the local law enforcement. 

“That wasn’t for you to decide, Tom,” Walt said, his eyes flicking to the name badge pinned to his wrinkled, white button down shirt. 

“Get it fixed,” Walt said, brushing past the man to speak with the teenager who’d been casting furtive looks at him from the attendance desk in the lobby, her blue eyes widening a fraction when they lightened on the shiny, gold star pinned to his chest. 

He read the plaque displayed in front of the counter and snorted _. ‘We’ll leave the light on for you’_ it read in plain Times New Roman font. _“Or turn it off, maybe,”_ he thought uncharitably but that wasn’t fair, one manager's crooked side-dealings shouldn’t impact a person's view of a whole franchise. It would be an unwarranted bias. 

Walt introduced himself, needless though it was, and openly studied the teenager. He doubted Amanda Belle was more than nineteen, she had her blond hair pulled back in a respectable bun and a crisp blue button down tucked into a pencil skirt, but the scattered streaks of blue highlighting it spoke of a little wildness. She also had a few novels tucked off to the side, pages dogeared and worn from use. “ _The Girl On The Train_ ” and “ _The Heart of Hyacinth.”_ A smart girl then, with diverse taste. 

“I’m not a homophobes unlike _some_ people around here,” she said slanting a quiet, but pointed look at Tom loitering in the doorway. “But I noticed Mitch and his friend. It wasn’t anything special at first, just two handsome guys passing through. They were nice. Mitch seemed nice. Gave a girl some eye-candy to look at from time to time.” 

She grinned at Walt through her lashes, trying to look wicked no doubt. She just looked very young and innocent. 

“Seemed.” Walt said, arching an eyebrow. 

“So you don’t think he’s so nice anymore?” Walt asked leaning against the counter visibly blocking out Tom who was loitering and shooting narrowed eyes glaring at the girl. 

She shrugged, looking away in embarrassment at having so quickly judged a customer. “It’s just a feeling I had, sheriff.”

In the background Tom sputtered but Walt spoke right over his indignant noises. “In my profession it’s called _‘instinct’_ and it’s saved me some close shaves in the past. You should always trust those, kid.”

Walt nodded, leaned back. “You have them for a reason.” 

Amanda squared her shoulders and continued her story. “They started arguing a lot. I’m usually stuck behind the desk so I didn’t see much but the way Mitch would grab his friend, and how the other guy would shake him off only to follow him to his room anyhow? I could tell their relationship or whatever, was on its way to being over.”  
  


“One day, the last time I saw Mitch's Native American friend he had a red mark on the left side of his face. He never came back and shortly after Mitch checked out. I was relieved - that he’d left Mitch I mean,” she admitted. “It didn’t seem like a good situation.”

Tom scoffed, clearly intending to bully the girl as he looked down at her, his face set in a stamp of unpleasantness. “A red mark on his face? And how exactly could you tell that missy? Hell, he’s an Indian, they’re all…”

Tom stopped, gulping back whatever he’d planned to say when he remembered he was fanning racist talk in the presence of the local sheriff. 

“I mean…”

“No. I know what you meant,” Walt said, his tone dangerous for all it’s placid calmness. Tom’s face went white.

“My best friend, Henry, he’s an Indian -- you didn’t know that, did you?” Walt asked, but he didn't wait for the manager to brown nose back into his good graces. 

Walt turned back to Amanda, smiling a little. “We’ve been friends since we were boys. Being typical, occasionally hot headed kids we got into a few scuffles. So I know from personal experience it’s more than possible to tell when Henry’s caught one in the face.”

“So, you saw tension between Mitch and his friend? Anything else set you off, or seem odd about him?” Walt asked.

“I didn’t like his friend, Anglican good looks, blond hair, blue eyes. He looked like one of the Beach Boys or something.”

Walt hummed. He sounded like exactly the kind of man who could draw in people with looks like that. “Most girls would call that attractive.” 

Amanda shot him a lopsided smile and lowered her voice. “I like boys sometimes but I’ve always had a bigger crush for girls like Pink.” 

Walt chortled. “I see.”

Amanda pursed her lips. “But there is something else, something I should have started with,” she said digging into her purse for her cell-phone. She fiddled with it for a second before turning it around, offering it to Walt. 

“When he checked out he had all these photos pinned to the wall, I thought it was weird. Like, really weird. I wanted to call the police but Mr. Dunn said he would do it. I guess he changed his mind.”

Mr. Dunn sighed. “There’s nothing wrong with taking photos. Fact is, even stalking isn’t something law enforcement can do much about, what would be the point in calling them in, wasting their time, _and_ ruining our reputation as a safe stop off between trips?” 

Walt counted to ten and then to twenty before he spoke. “Thank you Amanda, if you’re in need of a new job or a reference for one let me know. This is helpful, believe me.”

“You want to know why you should have called _Mr._ Dunn?” he asked, drawing out the honorific like a dirty word. Walt had learned that trick from Henry, how to say 'sir' and making it sound like _you shit-faced fool_ all with a perfectly respectable look on his face and a smile that showed too many teeth. “I'm working on a missing person case and Holden is the prime suspect. Maybe I wouldn’t have to be here taking up your precious time if I’d known this person had a stalker.”

Walt kept his grip loose, if he wasn’t careful he was going to crush the small blue-cased iPhone in his hands. Here was that incontrovertible proof he’d been looking for. Amanda had snapped a picture of Holden's closet wall, photo after photo of Henry, at the bar, walking outside, the photographer even caught Walt leaving the bar with his Stetson tipped low, blacking out his face in one shot. 

He squinted at the photo, clumsily enlarging it. There were a handful of scenic snapshots, picnic benches, and one with Holden standing in front of a battered old RV. _Oh, oh fuck. Could it be that easy?_ he wondered. Hope, hot and frantic, was building in his chest Walt looked at Amanda sweet, clever Amanda and smiled wildly. 

“I need you to send this to my deputies,” he said rattling off their numbers still staring down at the evidence in his hand. Amanda had pulled a small writers pencil from her purse and taken down the numbers before holding out her hand for her iPhone. 

“Right, sorry,” Walt said, handing it back. She pecked at the numbers before smiling, bright and wide. “There, all done, sheriff.”

“I hope you find your guy,” she called after him, her eyes dilated with second hand excitement. That was the second time he’d heard it today, only difference was she _did_ mean Henry. Maybe in a few years she’d become a deputy, she was smart and she noticed things. The rest would come with experience. Walt half turned, tipping his Stetson to the kid and burst out of the _Motel 6_ lobby riding a whirlwind born of hope renewed.

_Deserted Highway 12:00 PM, Wyoming_

_Kidnapping: Week One_

  
  
  


His head pounded, sharp and heavy. It hurt like a son of a bitch -- that was the first thing Henry noticed when consciousness returned his temples throbbing in tune with the war drums sounding off between his ears. The world was spinning and he wanted to vomit, but yeah, he was alright as he could be as a kidnap victim being towed off under the cover of night. Other than that, he was fine. _Where is the town sheriff?_ Henry wondered to himself, this seemed like a situation that would be right up his alley. _Oh, right Walt is not speaking to me right now._ Henry kept his eyes closed, and calmed the panic swelling in his chest as he feigned unconsciousness. He opened his eyes a sliver in an effort to get his bearing but it was no use, he felt like he was going to be sick and his vision was blurry.

Tacky wetness trickled down to his ear, bleeding from the blow to the head. He had little doubt that he had a concussion. After that he noticed the rope digging into his wrists tight enough that bones ground together when he tested the strength of his bonds. _Waking with screwed vision, a head wound, and bound hands? Sounds like something out of a B level horror flick. Not good, not good at all. On a sliding scale of 1 to 10 this is fucking bad._ His sight was messed up but his ears were still as sharp as ever; he could feel the deep bass of a powerful truck engine and the sound of tires burning up a highway. It was deeply concerning to Henry that he did not know where he was or where the driver was going. 

A man's voice broke the silence -- it was soft and lilting with a faint New York tenor but entirely foreign to Henry. “I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it for a few minutes there. Thought I might have clobbered you too hard. Sorry about that.”

Henry does not know what gave him away but he does not ask, the ruse was up. He closed his eyes and tried to remember -- the last few hours playing out on a jumbled reel. Images flashing over this retina accompanied by brief flashes of pain. A man grabbing him. A muscular forearm wrapped around his throat.

The red LED sigh of his bar dimming as he blacked out. Blood dribbling from his split lip onto a yellow-sticky note. An annoyed huff from the man with the gun as it was snatched from his fingers. A new, less bloodied yellow sticky-note being placed on the bar top accompanied by the cold barrel of .45 ACP pressed to the back of his neck. He had been forced to write a new note, one with fewer suspicious stains on it. Then there had been a sudden, blinding pain and his world had gone black. 

Fuck, he _did_ know who this was. It was the man he had thrown out of the bar for coming on too strong with Amy White Feather. It did nothing to set his mind at ease that the man had made a pass at him too before he had answered his luridness with what would become a black eye. But that did not explain what was going on here, did it? Henry's eyes quickly flicked to the door but the lock was down. Even if he somehow grabbed the door handle he could not open it. His hands were tied behind his back, the thick grey straps of a seatbelt across his chest keeping him upright as blood sluggishly dripped from his head wound onto the collar of his shirt and the white t-shirt he wore underneath.

The truck slowed to a stop bumping over gravel and dirt as it pulled over to the side of the road. This was not good. He waited, shaking his head in an effort to clear his vision as the stranger walked around the hood pulling open the cab door and leaning across him to unsnap the seatbelt. Henry studied him as he moved, he was a well built man, strong forearms, and he smelled clean like he was wearing freshly laundered clothes. Taking a proprietary grip on Henry’s upper arm the stranger hauled him out of the cab propelling him forward. 

Henry, confused and shaken by the strangeness of the situation lashed out wrenching his arm from the strangers grasp he made a beeline for the roadway. 

“Goddamnit!” The stranger cursed loudly. 

Henry could hear gravel crunched underfoot as the man closed the distance between them and tackling Henry face-down in the dirt, keeping him in place with a knee jammed into the small of his back.

“Why did you have to go and do that?” the stranger demanded, panting from having to exert himself. 

This man was wrong in the head, Henry decided. What kind of kidnapper did not expect their captive to flee given the slightest chance? The stranger readjusted his weight grumbling, as though this was all somehow Henry’s fault. As if escape wasn’t a natural human reaction to being tied up and carted to an unknown location for an unknown reason. 

“This isn’t how I wanted this to go, but...you don’t say no to him, you know?” the stranger said, and Henry’s sense of alarm shot up at the inclusion of another unknown man being brought into the situation. 

“I had a different plan, something else in mind but he said he’d tell the sheriff I was sick and needed locking up for being like I am if I didn’t go along.”

Henry remained silent. If he opened his mouth he would be eating dirt. Also, he did not want to set off the 140 pound man pressing a Henry-shaped hole into the ground. The man sat back on his haunches resting on the balls of his feet and the weight at Henry's back lifted this allowed Henry to turn over so he could look at the stranger who stood motionless, backlit by the headlights which were so bright as to obscure vision. 

He could actually see now which was a good start. Henry swallowed, choosing his words carefully. “I do not know this person you speak of but I am certain if I spoke to Sheriff Longmire on your behalf it would not matter what this other man claims. Take this rope off, and we can still do that.” 

The stranger looked down at him, a black mass haloed in the dark. “No, too late for that. Kidnapping is a federal crime in all states, that means Wyoming, too. No, too late. But Trig, he has a plan. We’ll stick to the plan.”

Henry felt his muscles coil, bound hands digging into the dirt as he tried to reason with his kidnapper. “You are right, kidnapping _is_ a felony but if I say nothing then no one has to know. This can end here.”

“Liar,” the stranger said, his voice was dangerous for all that it was soft and quiet, and if he wasn’t crouched over him like every movie villain ever Henry would go so far as to claim it was pleasant sounding. 

“No. You’d never do that.” 

By all accounts the stranger was what would be considered an attractive Caucasian male in his early thirties but the dilation of his pupils and look of restrained hunger in his eye made Henry's stomach drop. He knew that look, it was not food that this man wanted tonight and there was very little Henry was in a position to do about it. Right now with dirt in his mouth, wet from rain and snow seeping into his clothes Henry wished he had asked Walt to stay when he had come to the bar, let bygones be bygones, if only Walt had stayed he would not be here, miles from town. 

Shoulders blacking out the light the man hunched close enough that Henry caught a whiff of the cheap cologne he was wearing and stale beer on his breath. The stranger reached out, leaning in even more and Henry grit his teeth. _Fuck._ He was well pinned and he knew it but he had to try something. Seeing that hand outstretched, inches from his face Henry reacted. He slammed his head into the stranger causing him to topple back on his ass. Scrambling to his knees Henry forced himself up to his feet but that was the beginning and the end of Henry's escape attempt. 

The stranger was quick, more so than he had expected and grabbed him from behind, forearm pressed against Henry's windpipe. 

“This wasn’t how I planned it,” he whispered in Henry's ear. 

He dragged Henry to the back of the _Toyota_ and popped down the tailgate before he bent Henry over it with a hand at the back of his neck, the other balanced at his hip bone. Henry's nausea returned vengefully and his vision blackened at the edge, it made focusing a struggle but he could feel the damp wetness of the tailgate pressing into his shirt making it stick to his chest, and the warm press of a body at his back, blocking out the chill. The stranger was speaking but Henry only heard some of the words as if through a distorted filter of sharp agonies popping off like fireworks in his brain, it felt like someone had jammed an icepick in his ear. 

He winced, brows furrowed tight with pain. 

“You’re mine first.” 

_What is he talking about? Oh, oh, that,_ Henry thought to himself, he wanted to say something clever, something witty _‘you will not be my first’_ perhaps but he cannot muster the will, his hands itching to clutch at his head. The pain was not letting up, building itself up into one hell of a migraine. Henry was not allowed time to react, barely able to see the truck bed in front of him or hear the stranger at his back. But he could feel it, the line of hardness pressing into his lower back and a hand on his skin, rucking up his shirt. He tried to buck the stranger off or break his hold but discovered he could not. 

Next the button on his jeans was snapped open as they were ripped down to his knees. The man's hands traveled uncomfortably _lower_ squeezing at his bare ass, the stranger sucking in a lungful of air his nose brushing Henry’s ear. 

“Fuck, you _are_ pretty.” 

Henry did not respond. The winter air was cold and goosebumps rose on his exposed flesh as the world narrowed down to what he could see and feel, the truck bed and the strong hands keeping him pinned over the tailgate. He snarled, bucking against that iron hold but it was useless, his shoulders protested where blunt fingers dug in bruising-deep. 

“Stop that,” the man grunted, shaking him hard.

His head knocked into the tailgate and he fell limp, clutching at consciousness by a single thread. Half-concussed, dazed from the pain in his head Henry thrashed -- thrown into a heightened panic when he felt flesh, hot and foreign pressing against his ass. Clarity returned with the adrenaline spike; this was not some man he’s brought upstairs to his squeaky bed, this was _not_ Walt Longmire. 

“Get the fuck off of me,” he snapped. 

The man snorted. “Heh, have a mouth on you.”

The man's free hand was tracing Henry’s cheekbone as he spoke and he hated it, the mocking intimacy of it made his blood burn. 

Henry struggled for calm, to buck him off as the man kept _touching_. 

His face. 

His ass. 

Fuck, this was not good. 

“I can get you money, if that is what you want. I can get you enough money to buy three hookers if you stop this right now.” 

“My friend says the Cheyenne don’t have money, you’re all dirt poor.”

Henry ground his teeth at yet more racist, bullshit lies. Jacob Night Horse was filthy rich -- or did he not count? 

Henry tensed, trying to focus, to continue reasoning. 

So long as he kept him talking…

“Your friend is wrong. I own a bar, remember?”

“Maybe, maybe not. I know what you’re trying to do, but it wont work. I don’t want hookers,” the man said, his voice preternaturally calm. “I want you.” 

The stranger's weight pinned him face down over the tailgate, hands uselessly twisting in their bonds, and Henry’s calm mask began to crack. 

His breath hitched, heart pounding in his chest the panicked flutter of a wren flushed out by hunters as he realized there was only one way this could go and he was not going to like it. 

The stranger glided his fingertips up Henry's side beneath the fabric of his shirt, over his chest and back down to his belly-button, featherlight brushes against sensitive skin. Touches that under different circumstances from a different pair of hands would be welcomed but now make Henry’s skin crawl and want to just slide right off his bones and go somewhere far, far away. 

His thoughts scatter like autumn leaves tossed about in a strong gale. “Wait.” He said, shaking his head in a mute _‘no’_ as every muscle in his body tensed, struggling to break free. 

The stranger pauses for a single moment before he speaks. “Can’t.” 

_No, no, no,_ Henry thought even as he was pressed forward into the unforgiving metal of the tailgate. _Can't_ \-- that was all the son of a bitch he said, one word, one simple refusal before kicking his ankles apart and started working the solid length of his cock inside. _Fuck,_ Henry thought starting to hyperventilate. It was too dry and too quick to not be painful.

Henry cried out once a brief burst of sound that he couldn't contain that tapered off to a keening whine. _Fuck it hurts,_ Henry thought unable to contain the quiet grunts of pain, the sharp breaths sucked in. He had not engaged in this act in a while, he had forgotten -- the unpleasantness of quick and dirty, a careless roll in the sheets when no feelings were involved. 

The burning stretch of a rough fuck left him open mouthed and panting. _It’s too much, too fast._ Henry made a grating noise of pain and the stranger shushed him. 

“Shhh, it’s okay” he said, as though they were lovers and this was not rape.

Henry bit his lip, refusing to beg the man to stop. The white crescent of his teeth showed where he had bit down on his lip and blood dribbled down the corner of his mouth as his hands clenched into fists at his back; they had gone numb. He wished he could be so numb; his head was still throbbing, his wrists ached, and his ass was smarting from the man's hard, rocking thrusts. 

The stranger shifted his hands, resting one on Henry’s throat, ever so gently but for the feather light press that threatened to cut off his air. Instead, he pressed on the underside of Henry’s chin to tilt his head to the side, then leaned down and kissed him. Henry gasped, pressing his lips together firmly as the stranger tried to slip his tongue inside. The stranger applied the pressure that had been threatened, thumb digging in and forcing Henry to open his mouth. He kisses him again sucking on his bottom lip tasting the bitter tang of copper before slipping his tongue inside Henry's mouth. 

The stranger moaned against his lips and deepened the kiss - it was awkward and sloppy with Henry stuck belly down with his head canted to the side. It seemed to last forever and by the time the man pulled back, the pressure at his throat relenting Henry was desperate for a breath of air. 

Henry inhaled sharply, a shuttered sigh escaping as he exhaled. “Stop this -- stop _please_.” The words cut like shards of glass in his throat. “You do not have to do this,” he said, struggling to catch his breath.

The man sighed, breath gusting hotly into the shell of his ear. Henry shuddered violently as lips pressed a chaste kiss to the nape of his neck; he had never felt more vulnerable, more helpless than he had at that moment; half naked on the side of a deserted highway with a man he did not want buried balls deep inside. He had not wanted just any man for many, many years.

“Please” he said, again, biting out the words past a tongue that did not wish to cooperate. “You do not have to do this.”

“Yes, I do.” 

The stranger started moving, drawing back and then shoving roughly inside him again, for all his pretense of gentleness enjoying the way Henry tried to twist out of his grip, the way his body tensed and his wrists tore at the ropes, making angry wordless refusals as he fought to maintain consciousness. 

The slick, wet sound of fucking, _slap, slap, slap,_ cut through the near silence of the deserted highway broken by obscene groans. 

The man's pace increased, becoming something deep and bruising Henry knew he would be feeling for weeks, before he worked himself inside and grinds tight, fingers pressing livid bruises into dark skin.

He groaned, deep and filthy, as he came inside Henry.

Finally the stranger released his grip on Henry and pulled out. Without the man holding him up Henry’s knees give way and he stumbled his way to the ground caught in a tangle of jeans, his left side taking the brunt of the downward fall. He lay still and silent on the ground, trying to catch his breath and slow the erratic beat of his heart, it was racing so fast it physically hurt. 

Henry could hear the stranger zipping up his pants and wondered if this was the moment when the man killed him with the loaded .45 ACP he had stashed in the glove department. Henry was not terribly sure if he would try to stop him should that prove to be his intent.

Henry stared sightlessly into the distance feeling numb, sore, and sick inside all at once. He felt everything too much; a full body soreness from hitting the ground hard. He was far too empty and hollowed out inside for tears. He shut out the world and just breathed, drowning out everything that was not essential as he focused on taking one breath after another until everything narrowed down to the slow, steady pulsing of his heart and the feel of the earth, soft and welcoming beneath his cheek. 

_Tópa...yámni...núŋpa...waŋží…_ the familiar words rushed over him as he drifted in a fog, pain becoming a distance afterthought. He had hated the hours it took to learn the _Lakota_ language. He had been a sometimes foolish, head-strong boy wanting nothing more than to be outdoors in the sun with the winds in his hair but he did not regret the hours pouring over books and lettering now. Numbers were simple, straight forward in a world that so often liked to take detours, count back far enough and you will always return to where you began. It turned out that Walt liked numbers too, sometimes.

As a boy Walt would become so awkward, shifting on his feet, his face becoming tomato-red before giving class presentations that Henry had tried everything to help his friend find that calm center, his serenity among chaos. _‘Imagine the audience naked’_ unsurprisingly had not worked. Exhausting all other possible avenues Henry had suggested something very simple, that Walt prepare himself by counting backward beforehand and locate that moment of clarity.

_Three, he said._ Think of your father, happy and proud in the third row. _Two. he said._ Think of your favorite food, medium-rare steak with soy sauce and cornbread. _One, he said._ Think of that bottle of alcohol we are going to experiment with after school. It had worked. The teachers who had expected a different outcome had smiled with genuine happiness at his success but Henry imagines that it was he who had been most pleased in the end. After, when it was done and the school bell rang they had gotten tipsy over cheap booze in the backyard. It was then, half-drunk and giddy with success that Walt had leaned forward and planted a wet one on Henry’s cheek. 

Henry had been more startled than anything else. “What was that for?”

Walt had shrugged, having clumsily fallen to the ground he chose to remain on his back staring up at the blue summer sky. “I dunno know, but I liked it.” 

He had snuck a look at Henry, thinking he was being so clever but his attention quickly wandered and he stared up into the sky instead, examining the grey clouds which promised heavy rains.

Walt had smiled, thumbing his chin as though he were a man old enough to grow whiskers. “The sky is very big, and very blue today, don’t you think Henry?”

Henry leaned back into the dirt, shooting a thoughtful look at Walt and his very, very _blue_ eyes. He nodded to himself as though Walt’s words and his own private thoughts contained the height of importance, and in a way they had in that moment. That was when he first thought to himself, yes, he could stare into those blue eyes the same way astronomers stared into the skies and never grow bored. It was an epiphany of sorts but Henry kept it to himself cradled close and secret, as he took in the hot, sunny warmth of the sun, the earth cool and dry beneath his young fingertips. He had a best friend and he was content to take his time like a river boat meandering out to sea -- he would get there -- after all, he was in no great rush.

All he said was: “Yes, it is very blue today Walt.”

Henry counted backward drifting in the past, days when life had seemed so much easier, small and simple: graduate high school, maybe take in some college experiences, get a job. Whatever he did, wherever he did it, he knew that in the end he would always return to Absaroka County and the only best friend he had ever had. Life had a strange way of happening to a person when they least expected it, he supposed this was just another one of those times. 

_Sakówiŋ...šákpe...záptaŋ…_

Henry did not remember the man pulling back up his pants and neatly tucking in his shirt as though they were lovers engaging in a midnight tryst, his hands which had before been so rough and careless, made careful and attentive, his face drawn in concern at the specks of dried blood stuck to Henry’s skin along with the dirt and grime. 

_Wikčémna...napčíyuŋka...šaglógaŋ..._

He was weightless, absent and cold everywhere the winter wind lighted upon, there was no warmth to be found in starlight under a black sky. Henry was absent from himself and did not remember what signs they may have driven past or how far from town he had been taken. As though from a great distance he felt hands on him again, his feet moving of their own volition to where he does not know; but the truck is gone. Instead he blinked and there was a mattress where before there was only the dirt under his bare knees and the hard metal of a truck’s tailgate pressed into his ribs. Be it mattress or truck the pain was of the same kind and, again, there was little to be done as another man takes his turn. Henry decided he would be concerned about what he did not know and could not change tomorrow.

_Akéyamni...akénuŋpa...wikčémna…_

There were new restraints locked around his wrists, hard and metal and they bite into his skin when he awakened to himself, alone. He blinked, his brows furrowed as he tried to remember.

_Never mind, never mind,_ Henry thought rolling onto his side. He had no need to remember, he knew, he looked at the purple bruises littering his body, the unmentionable ache between his hips and he knew. Witnessed only by the pale moon filtering into the small room through an even smaller window Henry cried hard, rasping gasps for breath as though there was not enough oxygen in the room. It felt a bit like dying. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Winter_ has grown into a much bigger project than I had anticipated when I threw my hat into the Longmire ring. Thought’s [if you wish to share them] are most welcome.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holden and Trig are starting to feel the pressure as Sheriff Longmire gets closer to unraveling the mystery of what happened to Henry three weeks ago. Alone in the woods Mitch must decide if he has it in him to commit murder. What will he do?

_Buffalo Horn Range, Wyoming_

_Present:_

Henry was sleeping or pretending to be sleeping maybe, it was hard to tell because he would become so quiet that Mitch could barely see the rise and fall of his chest that indicated life. _Maybe, maybe I should let him go,_ Mitch thought to himself as he chewed on his lower lip nervously checking the road. Still no sign of Trig. If he was to let him go -- just pop off the restraints, point Henry toward the road and let fate decide the rest now would be the time to do it before he returned and he would eventually. Trig was getting harder and harder to please. No matter what Henry did it was always the wrong thing. Mitch didn’t get off on the hurting as much as Trig and while that didn’t make it right - doing what he’d done, what he _was_ doing - it wasn’t the same for Trig. 

This wasn’t _right_ and Mitch knew it somewhere deep down. But his bigger issue was he didn’t want to have that kind of brand following him around for the rest of his life.

_Murder._

If he turned on Trig, though, it would be a very, very short life. 

Either way, he turned, this ended badly for someone didn’t it? Maybe it wasn’t his fault, not really if he hadn't seen Henry that one evening, head was thrown back in genuine laughter, his mouth curled in a lazy smile as he leaned against the bar top. Maybe it was his fault -- looking good as he had that night. Mitch hadn’t been able to get Henry out of his head since. He didn’t like the sharing -- Henry was _his_ dammit -- but he knew that saying no to Trig was dangerous. Saying no to anything Trig had decided on was dangerous. So he kept his mouth shut or left whenever Trig wanted to have a turn. It didn’t change anything for Mitch Henry was still his in the ways that mattered at the end of the day.

Mitch frowned, returning to his original thought. Maybe he really should let Henry go, Trig was going to kill him sooner rather than later if he didn’t. He’d been able to avoid thinking about that up until this point but seeing Henry, unconscious with Trig’s hands wrapped around his throat, had been a wake-up call.

Something had to change. Henry had this way of getting Trig mad, sometimes he did things he shouldn't, other times he didn’t do anything at all -- it was impossible to know for certain. 

_Maybe I should..._ Mitch thought, stepping closer. 

The bed dipped under his weight and Henry opened his eyes, just looked at him for a moment as though he could see clear into his soul. 

_Maybe, after,_ Mitch thought. _One last time..._ He nodded to himself his mind all made up. Seated on the edge of the small mattress Mitch popped open the button of his jeans, his ears were buzzing and his skin tightened with excitement. _This will be the last time,_ he reminded himself. 

He’d get it right, just this once. 

Mitch didn’t undress completely though, he didn’t know how much time he had before Trig would come back, he just pushed his pants down and out of the way pulling his grey t-shirt off over his head. He crawled forward on his hands and knees to lie securely between Henry’s hips, his legs splayed out on either side. Fuck, he was a sight. Mitch just looked for a long moment before he placed a kiss on the middle of his chest, his tongue swiping up the residual taste of salt. Mitch felt Henry inhale, a soft inward drawing of breath but the other man did not otherwise react to his touching. That wouldn’t do at all, not for the last time. Mitch scooted back, giving himself room to work a hand between their bodies, his index finger pressing against the man's ass. Henry did react then Mitch could see the muscles in his arms tightening as he drew himself away, nothing more than an inch was possible, his face turned to the side as his eyes clenched shut, a muscle in his cheek jumping erratically. 

Mitch sighed, withdrawing his hand. “Trig was pretty rough last night, huh?” 

Henry nodded curtly but still wouldn’t look at him. Mitch backed off, leaning over the mattress as he reached for the container of lube that had ended up on the floor and set it down on the bed in clear sight.

“Look, this will be the last time, okay?”

Henry remained silent but shot him a dark, disbelieving look. 

“I know, I know, you don’t believe me. I wouldn’t believe me either. That’s fine. I don’t want Trig killing you, that’s all.”

Mitch flopped onto the mattress in an easy sprawl. “I know you have someone else, somewhere. It’s obvious you know about the sex stuff, and you’ve got the best cock-sucking lips this side of the county line, facts don’t lie.”

“I suppose what I’m getting at is this, I want to know their name. That’s simple enough.” Mitch laid himself flush against Henry, chest to chest, hip to hip, enjoying the feel of warm, strong muscles underneath him, his desire amping up at the feel of soft skin as his blood rushed from his head to his dick. 

Henry’s mouth flattened, a hard thin line of refusal, and Mitch snorted. “Never do nothing easy, do you?” he muttered. 

Leaving the container of lube unopened he propped himself up, working his hand down, down, down between them and thrust, burying his index and middle finger to the knuckles. Henry bucked his expression twisted up with pain. 

Mitch leaned in, awkward and hovering as he placed a kiss to his forehead. “I know Trig was rough, _I_ don’t have to be. Just tell me.” 

Henry’s breath was louder, harsh, and Mitch could feel the fast beat of his heart in his chest. _This is hurting him a lot,_ Mitch knew that much as he scissored his fingers which caused Henry to curse out loud. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Henry finally snapped, his nostrils flaring. Mitch could feel muscles clenching and unclenching as he tried to _not_ fight him, his fingers which he had so rudely shoved inside without the pretense of foreplay. 

Mitch slowly drew back his intruding digits, just the tips rubbing in aimless circles. Touching. “A name, Henry.”

Henry opened his mouth only to close it before speaking again. “Why do you care? Why can you not leave this one thing alone? You have had me in every way you could -- what more is left?” 

Mitch snorted. “I haven’t had you willing.” 

“Is that what you want, then? You wish for me to close my eyes and pretend you are another man?” Henry bit out. “You wish to hear me speak another man's name while you fuck me?”

It was Mitch’s turn to inhale, sharp and heady. “Yes.”

Henry grimaced, an ugly bitterness shining in his eyes. “And then you will release me?”

“Yes.” 

Henry looked at him, searching his face for something, trying to see if he was lying maybe but Mitch didn’t care because he agreed. Henry tipped his head forward in a tentative _‘yes’_ his voice, when he spoke, was exceptionally calm given the situation.

“Fine,” Henry said tilting his head to the side so he wouldn’t have to look him in the face. Mitch didn’t take it personally; this had been what he’d asked for. 

_This is what I want_ , Mitch reminded himself as he snapped off the containers' top, getting his hands well slicked. Mitch kept his eyes locked on him but Henry remained pliant under the ministrations of his questing fingers so he pressed deeper and with a crook of his finger startled a gasp from the man when he hit the sweet spot. 

“You’re so hot like this, wet and loose from slick and my fingers,” Mitch murmured, pressing into the same spot again, which in turn made Henry’s body buck underneath him forcing another shocked gasp from his lips. 

Mitch withdrew his fingers, leaned forward, and kissed him his tongue swiping over the closed seam of his mouth. “Let me in,” he whispered. 

“After...I’ll let you go.” 

Henry had no choice but to look at him when his tongue slipped inside for a wet, sloppy kiss. Mitch knew that because with the paper-thin pretense of another man removed Henry tensed up again, muscles coiling tight. It would hurt, Mitch knew if Henry didn’t relax. He didn’t want to hurt, not for this last turn. 

Mitch bit down, just below the column of his throat. “Close your eyes, Henry.” 

He skimmed his hands over the toned muscles of his chest, covering the vivid bruises decorating his trim waist with his hand. “Think of him, ok? Remember. Think of his hands on your hips as he throws you onto the bed, he’s so hot for it that he can’t wait -- can’t. Wants you to badly,” Mitch rumbled, his voice husky with desire. 

Henry made a sound, maybe it was a grunt of pleasure, maybe refusal, Mitch’s head was too clouded with his own wants to tell one from the other. 

“He’s going to fuck you hard -- yeah” Mitch muttered, lining up his own harness, throbbing for the tight heat of sex. “Just the way you like it.”

One, long slow push and he was inside. 

“Fuck!” Mitch exclaimed, his hand coming up to smooth circles over the side of Henry’s neck, like this he could feel the steady thrum of Henry’s pulse against his thumb. His index finger swiped across parted lips feeling the hot, gasping breaths and the small whines. 

_Pleasure, pain?_ Mitch didn’t know, like this, surrounded by tight, wet heat he didn’t care. 

Henry had his eyes closed tightly, but there was no mistaking his body's response; the proof was rubbing against Mitch’s belly. Mitch hitched the other man's legs over his shoulders and _shoved._

“His name,” he demanded, rocking forward. “Tell me.”

Henry shook his head in mute refusal. 

Mitch frowned, his face darkening. “We had a deal, Henry.”

“You wouldn’t back out on a deal, would you?” he asked. He did not allow the other man time to respond, to gather himself, Mitch pressed deeper, _harder_ until there was no space between them with Henry’s legs locked over his shoulder, and Mitch’s tongue down his throat. 

“C’mon,” he cajoled, slapping his thigh. He could feel it as Henry shuddered, trying to twist away, actual tears slipping from the corner of his eyes. 

“Please” he begged, shaking his head in refusal. 

Mitch blinked, shock dimming the heat curling in his belly. _This, this is what he won’t give up -- one lousy name?_ Mitch couldn’t understand it. 

Henry had stopped fighting, he’d given him everything he’d asked. _But not this?_ Mitch frowned, wanting it all the more. 

_What kind of man inspires this...this...absolute refusal, who is he?_ Mitch looked down at the man splayed out beneath him, laid bare in every way possible but still capable of holding onto this one secret thread. 

Mitch was shaken from his thoughts when he heard what sounded like the green _2014_ _Dodge_ pickup truck driven by Trig. _Fuck, too late,_ he realized. Mitch knowing his time was limited started moving, fast and hard. 

It wasn’t what he’d planned and Henry's gasps were no longer mistakable for pleasure. It didn’t take more than a few more sharp thrusts before he was riding down his sex high, soft, and spent. 

He looked down at Henry, the glazed, sightless sheen to his eyes and sighed. 

He was sorry, he was always a bit sorry _after_ as he lay in silence staring up at the ceiling with sweat cooling on his skin. That was his problem though, it was never enough. Not when he wanted it this badly.

So he was sorry, the same way he was sorry for forgetting a tip.

It wasn’t enough to make him stop. 

Mitch pulled out, wrapped a hand around his dick, wiping the mess off, and swiped it off on the edge of Henry’s blue mattress too distracted by Trig’s incessant thumping at the RV door to pay too much attention to the faint red stains he’d left behind. 

“Get your lily-white ass out here Mitch, do you know where I just came from?” Trig snarled, still pounding his fists.

Mitch debated staying where he was but that would be pointless. Trig had the key and more than enough strength to kick in the door if he wanted. _Best see what he wants,_ Mitch thought his lethargic afterglow thoroughly ruined. 

Resigned to what he knew he had to do Mitch threw on his high-school sweater and opened the door. “Hey Trig, come on in, kick up your feet, make yourself at home,” he said with false sincerity bleeding into his words. 

Trig, unwilling to be appeased, snorted. “I was in town, doing a job for _Melgaard Construction_ and what do I hear? The Sherriff -- the fucking sheriff has got a bug up his ass. Do you want to know why?” 

Mitch rubbed his forehead. 

“I suppose you’re going to tell me either way?”

Trig paused in his rant, sucking in lungful's of air, red-faced in his anger. “Because _Henry_ is his best fucking friend.”

And then one more time, in case Mitch hadn’t heard the last one. “Fuck!”

Mitch didn’t know what to make of that honestly. Everyone knew about Walter Longmire if they stuck around Absaroka long enough but he’d honestly never made the connection.

_Henry is a common enough name, isn’t it?_ Mitch blinked hard, bottling down the realization. _Oh, that Henry. Henry Standing Bear, Walt’s best friend._ Mitch felt his stomach go all queasy, he wanted to be sick. This had become a real mess.

Henry’s words to him that first night made sense now _if_ he’d let him go before the rape _if_ he’d gone to the sheriff with Henry, but he hadn’t. _Fuck!_ Mitch’s brow twitched, thinking, wondering. _Fuck, is Walt...No...I mean, he could be?_ Mitch thought, what if this was the man whose name Henry refused to speak, even when he’d been buried balls-deep, with Mitch’s hand at his throat. 

Walt was a hard man by all accounts but Mitch could almost see it. Word had it they _had_ been lifelong friends. 

Trig had stopped shouting and pacing. Mitch waited for Trig to continue, knowing there was more coming from the way.

“He knows who you are Mitch. Sheriff Longmire has your name and he’s been clear all over town talking to people. Asking questions to the _Red Pony_ staff about Mr. Fucking Standing Bear and shit. He’s got your number, man, it’s game over.” 

Trig blew out a sharp, angry breath. “It won't be so very long before Sheriff Longmire and the law are knocking at your door and when he does? You don’t want to be on the other side. I’ve heard stuff about him.” 

Trig shook his head, his face pinched. “I tell you this -- I don’t want to be around when he figures out what’s gone on here. So tell me...you still got that .45?”

Mitch's mouth fell open. “No. No way, man. Trig, no. That wasn’t the plan - just...no.”

Trig had never liked the word _‘no’_ coming from anyone and Mitch knew he was treading dangerous ground issuing it now. Mitch figured Trig’s addict mother had never taught him to share his sand-box shovel when he was a boy. 

“I’ll tell you what wasn’t part of the plan, pal. Sheriff Longmire. The local law has taken a personal interest in this case and being on that man's _Most Wanted_ shit list was not part of my plan.”

Trig backed off, getting out of his space, his face almost moved to something like sympathy. Or pity. Mitch didn’t imagine Trig understood that concept too well because he just asked him to commit murder.

“Hell, man! I know you really fancy this one -- but he knows the sheriff. I don’t see any way of just letting him go the same as before. Todd and Jeanie, well, they knew the score and public shame and sex-tape blackmail kept their mouths wired shut as good as any bullet,” Trig leaned against the outside of the panel and jerked his thumb in the direction of the tiny, cramped room that currently housed Henry.

“Your Indian, Mitch? He’s tough shit, I can never tell with him -- he’s just not the same. If we decided on letting him go and he went to that friend of his...we’d be finished. So, I’m asking you again, you still got that .45 ACP?”

Mitch nodded, swallowing past the anxiety making his nerves jangle like live wires, sparking at random intervals. “Yeah, Trig. I still have the gun.”

Trig unfolded from where he’d been leaning against the RV, nodding more to himself than Mitch who was ghost-pale and perspiring inside his fleece jacket. “Well, okay, that’s good then.”

“Go on, then, you know what you need to do,” Trig said, watching him with an unreadable look in his pale slate-grey eyes. Mitch looked into them for an instant and saw nothing inside them but his own reflection mirrored back, he shivered and went to get Henry. What choice did he really have? Trig was watching.

It was easy, far too easy getting Henry dressed and moving. Some days it was as if the spark had just gone out of him, it was eerie as fuck when that happened. He’d just stare blankly out as though Mitch wasn't even there, as though _he_ wasn’t even there. 

It made this easier if he didn’t fight because Mitch’s hands were shaking like an old man. 

“Come on, get up,” Mitch said, leaning down to unhook Henry’s left restraint so that he could move. “Hurry up,” Mitch muttered, his tone hushed and quiet as he threw Henry’s bundled up clothes at him. 

Mitch had kept the clothes he had been wearing that day this whole while because this wasn’t how he’d wanted it to end. 

Mitch ground his teeth, muttering. “This hadn’t been the plan.”

Henry cut a questioning look his direction and Mitch thought the man was going to respond to his stupid-ass excuse. But he did not, he merely pointed at his bare feet. 

Mitch groaned, “I don’t know where they are,” he admitted, deciding that fully clothed sans shoes would have to be enough. 

Mitch quickly snapped the restraints back into place cuffing his wrists in front as he tugged Henry out of the RV to where Trig was waiting beside the _Toyota_. Mitch could see the glint of the gun barrel and sighed out a barely audible apology. If Henry heard him, if he cared at all, it didn’t show on his face. 

Mitch hadn’t really expected it to. 

Trig had been right about one thing, Henry was a tough son of a bitch, always had been. Even when that inner spark was dimmed low, he was the fucking brightest thing Mitch had ever seen. 

Impossible to resist, Mitch just got sucked in, a moth to willing self-immolation. _It might almost be worth it..._

Henry's eyes flicked between the pair of them and his expression shifted, smugness turning up the corner of his mouth. 

“He is catching up to you.” 

It was not a question but instead a fact. There was only one man Henry could be talking about: _Sheriff Walter Longmire._

Mitch didn’t know how Henry had figured that out from looking at them but he had. Sometimes it was easy to read into all the mystic, mumbo-jumbo crap about Native Americans when Henry did things like that. 

He was strange like that. Maybe _all_ his kind were strange like that, it wasn’t as if Mitch would know. 

Trig’s reaction was less placid. 

“Doesn’t do shit for you, though does it?” Trig said, waving the gun around like it was a plastic water gun. 

It was dangerous and it made Mitch very nervous. 

Henry didn’t even blink, staring at them with those dark, dark eyes of his that seemed to be laughing at the pair of them. 

Trig could see it too, his handsome face turning an ugly red under that flat stare. 

Mitch tugged at the hem of his jacket, fidgeting with the loose threads at the bottom, as he waited for the explosion. 

“Your corpse will be cold and six-feet-under, food for worms and coyotes. No, don’t think this does jack-shit for you, you fucking Indian.”

Henry cocked an eyebrow smugness hardening into something bitter and harsh. “Better to be cold and dead six-feet-down than spend another night hot and stuck beneath you and your stinking, sweaty, pencil-dick.” 

_Oh, oh, shit, shit shit._ Silence. It was so loud Mitch could feel it past the sudden lurch of his heart to the vicinity of his bowels. 

Rage was boiling under the man's skin; this was clear in the fisting of his hands as he was trying to master it, and he was clearly losing. A few moments of clenching and unclenching his fists, the high flush off his face easing up and the tight coil of his muscles relaxed. 

Mitch held his breath, waiting to see what he was going to do now. 

Trig drew in a sharp breath, smiling cruelly. “Yeah? Well, this pencil-dick sure made you squirm last night.” 

Trig snorted, yanking Henry closer by his belt-loop, breathing his next words against the side of Henry's face. “Pretty sure this pencil-dick made you bleed, too. What, nothing clever to say now, hmm? That’s what I thought.”

Henry lifted his shoulder in a casual half-shrug. “Big words from a man who keeps my hands bound at all times.”

Trig’s exclamation became a ragged, wordless snarl as he shoved Henry forward hard enough that he landed on his knees, bracing himself with his elbows to keep from face planting in the hard crush of packed snow. 

Trig had reached for his belt, unlooping the black leather with the gold plated buckle, when Mitch cleared his throat stepping forward, a hand on Trig elbow as he tried to calm the man. 

“Trig, come on man. Let's just get this over with, yeah? Give me the gun and I’ll take care of this just how you said.”

“I don’t hear sirens, do you Mitch?” Trig asked, his eyes hard and flinty. 

Mitch met his gaze and physically recoiled from what he saw there. Empty, empty as a glass jar with nothing inside, that’s what it was like staring into his eyes. He shivered and it had nothing to do with the cold. 

“No, you don't hear a Goddamn thing! That’s because no one knows where we are, not even that big-time Sheriff friend of yours, chief. And no one is going to.”

He lightly slapped the belt against his thigh. “There’s time enough yet for what needs to be done. I won’t tack back-talking from a fucking whore Mitch -- I won't.”

“You sell yourself for money and you call _me_ the whore?” Henry asked, his head tilted back to meet Trig’s gaze. 

Mitch didn’t know how he did it, really. 

Shit, he was a tough son of a bitch baiting Trig like this. _Yeah, or maybe he just doesn't care anymore…_ Mitch ground his teeth and drowned out the slippery, soft whisper of his nagging conscience. 

Henry maintained eye contact without batting a single, pretty fucking eyelash and Mitch was impressed. Whatever his reason. 

“You forget, I did not choose this path.” 

Henry looked up at them from his knees, his expression unreadable. 

_Brave or suicidal?_ Mitch couldn't decide on which. Mitch turned his face aside, unable to watch what was coming, unwilling to do anything to stop it. Mitch knew what he was and what he wasn’t. He was no one's hero. 

The belt cracked like thunder against his shoulder and down his spine. Henry could feel skin bruising and breaking with the force. He grunted hard, teeth grit to hold back the sharp cry wanting to break free. Still, It was spite, not pride that held his tongue. Even though the fog of sharp, white-hot pain Henry could see the effect the sight of blood had on Trig, it was visible in the tenting of his pants. 

Henry bent forward with his hands digging into snow and dirt below him, trying to breathe between the lash he knew to be coming. The second lash arrived before Henry had time to prepare. He did not think it would have mattered much anyways. 

Trig’s belt crossed over where it had hit before and even through his thin flannel shirt which was almost certainly being torn, it felt like a stinging line of fire dragged across his skin. 

Mitch tried to talk down his companion but Henry knew better than to pin his hopes on the other man. He knew who was really in charge and it was not Mitch. “Come on, Trig, that’s enough man.”

Trig just kept hitting and Henry’s mind became a white, blank slate numb with pain. The buckle slammed into the middle of his back, gouging through his skin. When it was too much Henry cried out, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. He had bit his tongue. He pressed his face into the snow to muffle the screams he was just barely holding inside. 

This was a new experience. He had never known pain quite like this before. A wild punch in the face from drunk customers every now and again, yes, the odd barroom brawl, okay it had been known to happen, but not this...this was something new and it hurt like a son of a bitch, too. He laid there in a daze feeling blood dripping down his back and into the snow. 

As though his body was not already a collection of sharp agonies. His back, it felt like a blazing inferno of agony and his vision was blotting out the snow as it turned red with blood spots. Just when Henry thought he could take not more of it the belt stopped and he felt Trig grab him by his shoulder, dragging him back on his knees.

“Now I’m done.”

Henry stared at the white snow, now dotted with his blood, and hung onto consciousness fully aware that if he let go now he might never wake. If they were to murder him he would rather be present for it than passed out in the dirt. 

“Well go on then, say something now?” Trig asked with malice thick in his voice and placed a hand on Henry’s back. 

That hand felt like a fucking brand pressing against raw, open wounds, he tried to recoil but all he could do was slump toward, helpless on his knees, and pray that this last unwanted touch would be removed soon.

Trig snorted, mirthless and cruel as he withdrew his hand. “No? I thought not. Get up, you and Mitch are gonna take a _long_ walk.”

Henry gathered what little reserve he had left and got to his feet. Trig no longer had the gun. Henry could see the glint of metal sticking out of Mitch’s waist pants as they headed deeper and deeper into the tree-line. It was hard keeping the pace, forcing the aching of his body to the back of his mind, the red welts bleeding onto his back, the bone-deep bruises littering his skin like a purple and yellow canvas. _Just one more,_ he thought to himself after each step feeling like a thread stretched between two unreachable points -- one more tug and he would be ripped in half. Henry shuffled along following the clean, straight line of Mitch’s back ahead of him. He thought of running, of course, but where too? If he went back it would be straight to the waiting arms of Trig with his belt and sadistic desires. If he ran from Mitch it was a bullet in the back instead. Henry knew his limits and he had passed them miles ago, weeks ago possibly. 

Loath though he was to admit it, running was _literally_ impossible; the men's nightly activities had left Henry with an embarrassing limp and the snow was painfully cold against the soles of his bare feet. He was so cold and his teeth were chattering incessantly; he wanted to rub his hands together for warmth but the restrains got in the way. It was going to be a cold night that much was certain he felt it as the temperatures began to drop and he could see his breath fogging in the air. _Bad news,_ Henry thought to himself, even as he realized the greater danger was the gun refracting silver in the dimming evening light. He was still standing, still walking, hard as it was to admit to himself it was becoming harder and harder to keep moving. 

After many hours of travel deeper and deeper in the woods, Mitch stopped to look around, reaching for his gun and turned to face Henry. 

“Here,” Mitch said, looking around with satisfaction.

Henry glanced around and surmised it was as good a spot to leave a body as any. Miles off the trail with significant distance from where Trig and Mitch had been camped out should it ever be discovered. 

It did not escape his notice that even he had written himself off at this point. 

Mitch was trying to steel himself for the next act. Henry could see the signs and quickly realized here and now was the only chance he would have or Mitch was going to kill him. 

It was as good a place as any to die and while it was pleasant to breathe fresh air once more and walk below the towering pines and yellow tamaracks he did not _want_ to die. He had come to that realization as he tried freeing himself from the restraints. In truth he had never really wanted to and seeing Martha -- his waking dream of her as beautiful in death as she had been in life -- had been a swift reminder that he had reasons to live, people to live for still. 

Walt, the stubborn bastard, would come around Henry just had to wait him out. 

If he needed one good reason, that was it. Surly, mule-headed Walt Longmire with his _Reiner_ beer’s and his soft, private smiles. It was enough. 

Henry looked around taking in the deep stillness of the forest and supposed that even if this was to be the last thing his earthly spirit saw he was glad it was this and not the ugly mustard yellow paneling of the RV. He shaded his eyes against the fading light of the setting sun, squinting upward into the sky as he heard a great _whooshing_ of wings. 

High above them, a bird of prey took to flight; his skin prickled in apprehension as he heard the nearby call of an owl. 

Henry turned his face away from the fading light to stare down the gunmetal grey barrel of the .45 ACP. Mitch’s hand was visibly shaking as he extended his arms in front of him, his face shiny with a thin layer of perspiration which he wiped at with his left arm. 

Henry darted his eyes around looking for anything he might use but there was nothing and his hands were still bound. Useless. All he had left were his words. Henry lifted his eyes, facing his would-be-murderer, and kept his tone pitched low and conversational when he spoke. “You do not have to do this, Mitch.”

Mitch stood no more than two feet away in unnerving silence. He was sweating and nervously licking his lips with the .45 ACP still quivering in his grasp. 

Henry took a small step backward, his eyes remaining locked with Mitch. “This was not the plan -- do you remember? That is what you told me the first night by the highway.”

“Yeah, I said that didn’t I?” Mitch said.

“Yes, you did.”

“I know what I am,” Mitch swallowed, “I know that, okay? But I don’t want to kill you, I don’t…” he started pacing, his eyes flicking at Henry every second pace. “I don’t want that kind of trouble.”

Henry nodded, placidly agreeing. “You are not like your friend.” 

Mitch sighed. “No, I’m not. This would be easier if I was.”

Henry remained very still, bowing his stature at the shoulders to appear harmless as he waited to see what Mitch would do next. 

Mitch was bobbing his head, brown hair flopping over his forehead in a boyish manner, his breathing was also becoming steadier, and the gun slowly lowered. Soon it was pointed harmlessly toward the ground instead of Henry’s face. _Success._

Mitch frowned, his brows drawn tight as he looked back at Henry. The way his eyes still flicked between him and the gun made Henry uneasy but he took care to remain relaxed. Mitch was already mirroring his posture as he unwound. 

“I’m not a murderer, your right,” Mitch muttered, his gaze flicking back to Henry who remained silent and watchful. 

Henry could feel his emotions churning wildly inside. _This_ was the man who had forced him to submit? He was little more than a boy who had never been shown the boundary of what was allowed and what was not, completely lost without Trig leading.

Without Trig breathing down his neck Mitch was easily led, he wanted to be led. 

“I’m not like him though. I - I can’t do this but Trig expects-”

_No, keep him talking, keep him focused on you,_ Henry thought. If he were to lose control of the situation now there would be no second chance. 

“Mitch!” Henry snapped, watching as Mitch stopped muttering to himself and met his gaze. _What now?_ He seemed to be asking. What now, indeed. 

“Look, you are the one in control here okay?”

“Yeah, yeah I am, I still got the gun.”

“Yes, you do,” Henry quietly agreed. “You are in control, you have the gun. But Mitch are you going to let this so-called friend turn you into a murderer?”

Mitch scowled, brows were still pinched together as he tried to think. 

“He is setting you up -- you have to see that,” Henry said. “When Sheriff Longmire catches up to you, and he will catch up to you, Mitch -- how long do you think it will be before that _friend_ of yours gives you up?”

“Mitch,” Henry said, pausing, waiting until the other man was looking at him, all his attention focused squarely on him. “You are the fall guy.”

“That, that sounds like Trig all over, dammit!”

Henry leaned forward, redirecting Mitch’s attention back to him. He spoke low enough that Mitch had to lean in to hear him, pinched brows proving that he was listening. “Trig is not here Mitch, but you are.”

“You’re right, I am.” Mitch nodded, muttering to himself, “this is my choice.” 

Mitch raised his right hand, .45 ACP steady as a rock, and Henry closed his eyes. _Fuck!_ He did not even have the proper time to wonder where he had gone wrong.

The loud crack of the gun made hearing anything else, even rational thought, impossible. He flinches in a moment that seemed to stretch infinitely, waiting for the impact to throw him back into the trees. It never happened. The trees come alive with the sound of birds scattering as they take to the skies in flocks, their squawks and fluttering wings screaming _‘danger, danger’_ to all the other woodland inhabitants.

“Get the hell out of here,” Mitch said. “I’m guilty of a lot of bad things and I know it. But like you said -- I’m not a murderer. I’m not.”

Mitch sighed pinching the bridge of his nose. “I won’t decide what happens to you Henry but the mountains will.”

And just like that Henry was free. Heart jack-hammering in his chest, the middle of his back itching for a bullet Henry started walking before Mitch changed his mind. With each step, he kept expecting to hear a gunfire report but it never came. 

Henry squinted up at the darkening skyline and picked a direction and started moving, knowing that if he stopped, if he fell now, he might not be able to get back up. He knew his chances were slim. He was wounded, miles from civilization, and he could barely feel his feet anymore. But it was more of a chance than he had before. Dream Martha's words, strange and comforting kept repeating in his head.

Maybe his friend really had clued in -- he was a smart man, Walt, he just had a bad habit of not seeing things if he did not wish to. Henry had somehow ended up falling into that category for a time. Maybe he was waiting, looking, either way, it was a pleasant thought to entertain as he trudged through the snow. 

An owl hooted in the distance and Henry shivered against the cold. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alone and badly injured in the middle of nowhere what is Henry Standing Bear going to do? ⁉️😲


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The mountains will decide the fate of Henry Standing Bear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyone still interested? 😅 This has become much longer than I had anticipated.

_Buffalo Horn Range, Wyoming_

_Present:_

Daylight had given way to the night several hours ago as the sun was sealed below the horizon taking with it all the warmth in its descent. All that remained was ice and snow and unrelenting dark. Henry could not feel either his hands or his feet. Perhaps that was for the best. He did not imagine he wanted to feel anything; there was not a single part of him that was not pressed to the point of breaking. Even his heart caged beneath his breast-bone felt sorely used.

He tried not to dwell on how it would be just his rotten luck to survive the rape, the torture, the cold, only to lose his fingers and toes, if not his life, to the elements. Terrible as the situation was it was marginally better than it had been. He was alive and away from both Trig and Mitch which was not something Henry had anticipated when he woke this morning to the hot drape of Mitch’s arm thrown across his body. 

It did him good to know Walt had noticed his vanishing act, small comfort to be had alongside the bad. Even if it served no true purpose, him miles into the middle of nowhere, and Walt somewhere closer to town. Henry hoped Walt had not forgotten his gloves, as he had done in the past, it was bitter cold tonight. With his thoughts turning to Walt a few slow sparks of warmth eased the steady ache residing just above his ribs.

Henry wondered if Walt was chasing strong leads or simply shaking trees to see what fell loose. It was possible Trig had not covered his tracks as well as Henry suspected. It would be just like the man to underestimate Walt for a small-town sheriff with small-town ways. Walt was meticulous and if the white-mans devil was hidden in the details, well, his friend would be certain to flush him out sooner or later.

Walt did not wear that tin-star that he prided so much for nothing, after all.

The temperatures declined sharply with the falling sun. Henry kept walking with his hands folded towards his chest as he tried to conserve what little warmth he could, his breath turned to gray mist crystallizing in the air and his teeth chattered no matter how hard he clenched his jaw. It was becoming harder and harder to focus, to remember the path when his mind filled with a gnawing, biting cold that sank so deeply he could feel it in his bones. His body protested each step. _Just one more_ , he told himself when wounds set to aching and burning. It did not help that with each new step he was reminded of the stinging burn that made walking hard and had to brace himself against a pine tree retching up his guts.

Henry’s shoulders quivered as he expelled the meager amount of food contained in his belly and when he was finished he wiped his face with the edge of his torn sleeve. He remembered, one after the other, Mitch and Trig taking their turns, prying his legs open that first night.

Dread filled up the hollow of his chest as memories flashed like impressionistic paintings before his eyes, thoughts scattering into chaos and the feeling of absolute helplessness. It sickened him, the thought of their touch, the memory of how they had used him for their own pleasure. 

Henry had always liked sex, loved it even, -- before -- now his palms became clammy and his stomach rebelled at the very thought of it. He was ashamed and angry and a million other things all at once. 

Henry beat his closed fist against rough bark finally setting loose the broken cry of frustration and anger that had been building inside him since this had happened. There was no one here to see him fall to his knees in the dirt. No one but the dark sky and the strong tree that kept him upright, it’s rough bark soaking his tears, to bear witness his unraveling. Henry pressed his face into the sturdy oak, uncaring of the scratches dug into his skin, he was too preoccupied with his struggle to breathe past the anguish constricting his throat.

Henry leaned against the great oak feeling rough bark under his fingertips and inhaled sharply as he wrestled with his inner demons. He could not allow his mind to drift pulling him back into that RV where he had been pinned down. Helpless. Not if he was going to survive the night and find shelter before he froze to death. He had not survived _them_ only to be done-in by a bit of ice and snow. _Focus! Or you are going to die out here and no one will ever know -- he will not take it well._ Henry let his shoulder slump quietly cursing his conscience for being right. Walt did not need to lose anyone else. Walt was a strong, proud man but losing Martha nearly put him six-feet-under. Walt's grief had been a terrible thing to witness and Henry knew that next to Cady, Henry’s death would be unacceptable.

Walt had always had it in his head that he would be the one to bite the bullet _first,_ he was the sheriff, not Henry. _Dammit!_ Henry glared up at the stars twinkling down, innocent and over bright past the wet film that clouded his eyes.

_Well, that is that I suppose -- I cannot die. I would hate to disabuse Walt of his determination to be the first of us to travel to the Undiscovered Country._ Henry felt exposed, emotions raw and broken-open, laid bare to the night air. As if he had stripped naked under the cold light of the moon. Still. He had to try. He owed _that_ much to the people he loved, even if he felt a bit like he was held together by little more than chewing gum and scotch tape.

He would try -- in a moment.

Exhaustion dragged at his waking mind, every limb felt too heavy and lethargic. Desperate for respite he closed his eyes tightly rallying his faulty reserves. He could not sleep here in the middle of the woods, a stone's throw from shaking hands with death by way of elements of the unknown. He could not sleep here but perhaps it would do him good to close his eyes -- just for a moment. He could drown out his troubles and listen. The woods were alive. In the distance, coyotes yapped into the night air only to be cowed into silence when a pair of wolves made their presence known with long, sonorous howls piercing the dark. 

Closer, twenty yards away at best a bobcat’s shrill scream rent the night. It was a loud, yowling warning to not trespass on its designated territory. Henry smiled faintly breathing in the scent of wet bark and moss.

He had no desire to disturb the animal. He was as much an unwanted guest on its territory as an unwilling visitor who had been rudely dumped like an abandoned dog at the foothills of a towering mountain. He was aware he should be grateful that Mitch had been convinced to cut him loose but Henry could not muster that particular emotion when bitter was far closer to the truth. Bitterness was easier to accept.

He knew what his chances were. And so had Mitch. Releasing Henry absolved the other man of killing him outright but it was a fate Henry may still meet and they had both known that. Maybe a bullet would have been kinder than the slow death brought on by hypothermia or a wild animal attack. 

_It is what it is,_ Henry thought, sighing heavily. It was a sort of freedom he supposed. To live or die by one's own will. But If he was free why then did he still see blue sheets and yellow panels every time he closed his eyes? Perhaps it was the restraints that still bound his wrists that made it too bitter a pill to swallow. Its edges were crusted with ice leaving them all but frozen to his skin. Just another discomfort among many others he carried and less worrisome than others that pricked at his spirit. 

Henry did not want to die but the thought of dying like this -- bruised and bloodied with his hands forever bound was almost worse. Perhaps with his hands freed it would not feel the same. But they are and it was not how he wanted to die. Cold and alone, wearing marks given by a man he did not want and wounded in ways he was unsure how to forget. 

Tears stung the corner of his eyes and he inhaled through his nose counting backward until the ragged edge of his emotions whittled down to something more bearable. He reached sixty before the moment passed. 

Henry swiped at his face, his hands brisk in their duty of removing the wetness on his cheeks which left a stinging-warmth in their wake. _Enough. This is pointless! You must keep moving forward before you cannot._

Unready to move and feeling every single one of his years and many more besides Henry straining his ears to hear the faintest rustle of small game scurrying through the brush, branches cracking as they rush to get away from the interloper in their woods. That was when he heard the ominous _hoot-hoot_ of a nearby owl. His skin prickled as he heard its call. 

_Now I will go,_ he thought propelled into motion by the preternatural omen. _When a messenger of the Spirits speaks -- I will listen._ Henry shoved himself away from the pine already missing the sturdiness of the trunk at his back. His breathing had become a shallow, ragged inhale that broke through the stillness of the night as he tried to get oxygen to his lungs, and his shake had worsened. He paused for too long. 

Henry could barely see the stars scattered in the sky and the trees were dancing. Swaying too fast for him to keep track of. Only they were not moving where they? His vision was going to hell. Henry stumbled forward scraping his hands and knees on jagged-edged rocks to break his fall. He quietly cursed under his breath and picked himself up off the ground.

Desperation was the only thing that kept him upright as the world narrowed down to a tunnel, wind tormenting him with its bitter cold slap. He knew the signs the same as any man who spent enough time outdoors. _Hypothermia._ Stumbling through the dark he lost track of where he was, where he was going, or why he was even trying at all, branches reached out to him like the hands of the dead threading red ribbons into his exposed skin. 

He knew he could not stop. Stopping meant death and he was not prepared for the _Camp of the Dead_. Henry hunched his shoulders and leaned forward into each step white powdered snow crunching underfoot with his bound hands held in front to keep him from stumbling. It did not help much but it kept him upright and moving. He could only hope that neither Mitch nor Trig decided they would be better off with him dead because he was leaving tracks even an amateur could follow. A low lying mist covered the ground which made visibility tricky even for a man who was not on the verge of collapse but when the cloud mist parted, pushed by a sharp northerly wind, he saw it.

Either he was hallucinating or that was dark grey plumes of smoke billowing up from a cabin in the distance. It looked like a large cabin surrounded by a thick copse of pines that stood so tall their boughs appeared to touch the stars that lit the night sky just enough that Henry had been able to see the cabin at all. Without their faint light, he might have stumbled right past it, hidden by dense thickets and grey mist. It hardly seemed possible -- but there it was. The light was shining from the bay windows and smoke was pillaring upward from a chimney. In that moment nothing had ever looked more beautiful than that shining, bright-white beacon. 

He could smell the smoke from a fireplace burning pine wood, the acrid taste of ash got caught in his mouth, but it was still better than anything else he had had in his mouth this past week. It was real, too, it just had to be. Henry did not know what he would do if this was his mind playing tricks. He stumbled the last fifty feet from the dense tree-line to the cabin unfeeling to the branches that dug into skin and caught in his hair. He had made it. 

This was real and he knew it for a fact when he got close enough to touch the exterior of the cabin with shaking hands. Curling his hand into a fist he banged on the door _, thunk-thunk, thunk-thunk,_ he was forced to stop the muscles in his hand spasming, protesting his rough use. 

Henry leaned into the doorframe, his breathing quick and shallow as he gulped in air. He closed his eyes and counted backward, _again_ , fighting to keep wild panic from overtaking his rational sense. _Is there no one home?_ The thought alone nearly drove him down to his knees.

_Where there is light there are people. You only need to wait a little longer,_ Henry told himself and sure enough, he could hear a man's voice cursing behind the solid door before it swung open the hot air rushing outward in a sharp gust. 

“Who the hell --- wait.”

The man squinted at him for what seemed an eternity but was really no more than the passing of a moment as he peered at Henry’s face in the dark. 

“Henry?”

_Thank the Creator._ The world was beginning to dim but he could see a familiar shape beginning to form. 

“Walt?” he asked.

Henry looked at the man wearily too tired, too cold to speak and felt his world spin, a jarring tug as his knees gave out from under him. There were more cursing's and shouting of _‘Henry!’_ and he tried to answer only to discover his voice as absent as the sun. Henry swiftly relinquished the thread he had been hanging on to for mile after mile. 

He was done. 

  
  



	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Omar Rhodes plans for a quiet evening-in takes a sharp turn when an unexpected visitor shows up at his door half-dead in the middle of the night. Omar is a smart man. He puts together what happened and it makes his finger itch for a trigger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, who thought it was going to be Walt who answered that door? 😅

_ Omar Rhodes Cabin: _

_ It was good to be king,  _ Omar thought as he propped his steel-toe boots on the table nearest to his deep-cushioned armchair and smiled. Myra would’ve had a fit if she saw him do that but what she didn’t see she couldn’t nag him over. He left his feet there for three long minutes as he tried to get comfortable, left leg over the right, right leg over the left, but it was no use. His shoulder kept tensing up as he waited for Myra to come down on him like a house on fire; he grunted wordlessly as he chose to settle his boots down on the slate-grey carpet flooring after the fourth minute ticked by. Myra was out of the house but some private parts of his brain hadn’t received the memo apparently. Besides, it would be a pointless waste of furniture to scuff the wood -- it had nothing to do with  _ Her _ .  _ Uh-uh, you just keep telling yourself that old boy,  _ his subconscious snickered.

He leaned forward and tossed another branch into the fire listening as it cracked and popped keeping the room toasty warm. He settled back down in his armchair and picked up the worn paperback he was reading, fingering the spine which was cracked from repeated use he hummed an old tune, absently sipping at coffee that had long since gone tepid. Shelley’s  _ Frankenstein  _ suited him perfectly on an evening spent caged indoors, the wind howled outside and Omar resigned himself to a few days cooped inside the cabin as Mother Nature took her wintery rage out on the world. Weather like this reminded him why he had built the place as big as he had. Omar hated being confined but if he had to be then it would be in a big, well-stocked, and well-furnished cabin. 

Omar squinted at the words on the paperback, the novelty of reading beginning to wear thin, It was well past midnight by this point.  _ I really should cut the lights and get some shut-eye,  _ he mused, but he didn’t. He kept turning the pages, enjoying the quiet but for the winds continuous howling. Shelley’s Creature was starting to grow on him, small, pin-pricks of pity for a miserable outcast living on the edge of civilization. The world could be a shitty place to an outcast. 

Omar winced as the bitter taste of black sludge hit his tongue, it was barely drinkable, let alone something that should be called coffee. His coffee tasted like shit -- always had too. Now Myra, well, Myra could stir up something heavenly and call it coffee but she wasn’t home which is why he was seated in front of the fireplace reading a heavily dusted paperback instead of engaging in other more hands-on recreational activities. 

Myra had bought herself a one-way ticket to the Big Island. By now she was wearing that Fuschia bikini and sipping margaritas and fruity cocktails on a self-imposed  _ Omar-Break _ . It was for the best if they retreated to their separate corners after fights; better to do that than needing to involve Longmire and his deputies because they were having it out in public shouting-matches. But that still left him alone in the cabin drinking black sludge instead of coffee. Maybe he should hire a maid, it wasn’t like the place wasn’t big enough to respectably accommodate another person, especially if it was one of those pretty-dark eyed  _ senoritas _ . Omar starred in the fire, grinning.  _ Yeah, maybe a maid to clean the place up. What would Myra say to that, I wonder?  _ A branch cracked, split down the middle, and Omar broke away from his mental day-dreaming. There would be no pretty _ senoritas _ for him tonight. Nope, it was just him and  _ Shelley _ tonight. 

“Might as well be chugging oil,” he muttered when he finally decided to set his mug down far enough away that he wouldn’t reach for it by accident. He grumbled some more, hauling himself from his chair knowing if he didn’t get a move on now he was liable to sleep right there in the living room. He flipped the paperback closed with his page dogeared so he wouldn't forget. He liked finishing what he started. 

_ Thunk-thunk. Thunk-thunk. _

Omar grimaced as the fine lines that bracketed his mouth deepened. He quickly reached for the Sharps rifle kept on display over the fireplace. It was for occasions like this that he kept it loaded.  _ Now, who the hell went visiting at this time of night?  _ He had no idea who it could be but seeing as his place wasn’t near a road -- any public road for that matter -- it had his hackles up. 

Nothing good came from a knocking door at this hour. 

Omar flicked on the outside lights flooding the front yard with yellow florescent and looked through the peep-hole because only dumb-ass idiots in horror movies opened the door without taking a look first. He was armed, not stupid. Living in a place as isolated as this cabin meant being stupid was only a stone's throw from dead and he had some living to do yet.

A man was on his door stoop, he kept his head tucked low with raven-wing black hair obscuring the upper portion of his face making it hard to make out identifiable features. The lights cast deep shadows across the sharp angles of his face but what caught Omar’s attention the most were his hands, specifically, the fact that they were bound in front of him by standard-issue police cuffs.  _ Great, a hand-cuffed felon escapee on my doorstep -- just what I wanted. Better give the local lawman a ring.  _ Omar reached for his cell planning to play Russian roulette with reception when the man looked up.

Omar threw the door open in recognition, his eyes widening. He knew that face, smug after winning an argument, it was Henry Standing Bear. Oh, that was Henry all right. Omar knew his face; knew the tight pull of his lips in disdainful but silent disapproval. It was a look upon which Walt seemed to hang a hell of a lot of weight -- as if he were some kind of  _ Jiminy Cricket _ or shit. 

All his thoughts flashed through his head in a matter of seconds as Omar frowned, squinting at the man. __

“Who the hell --- wait.” 

_ Yeah, that’s Henry alright. How the hell did he end out all the way out here? Shit. Wait, where are his shoes? Never mind, he must be freezing!  _ Omar swung the door wider confident he wasn’t going to be shanked by a convict or robbed. It happened fast, between one instant and the next. Henry said one name --  _ Walt _ .  Because, of course. Then Henry collapsed in a dead-faint. 

Omar lunged forward catching Henry around the middle and dragged him inside, kicking the door shut with his boot heel, as he laid him out by the crackling fireplace. Looking at him lying there like that unconscious scratched to hell, it was no wonder he’d asked for Walt. He looked half-dead. He also looked like he’d been beaten to hell. 

Omar tried his cell but the reception wouldn’t let him get through. Omar cursed, long and foul, his night had just taken a sharp pivot he didn’t much like. Never mind the state of Henry, scrapes, and cuts all over, his clothes were torn like he’d snagged every branch between here and  _ wherever _ it was he’d come from. Like maybe he’d been running from something or someone.  _ Dammit. What has he gotten himself into?  _ Omar bolted the door shut and laid his Sharps down across the coffee table. 

Far enough not to be discharged accidentally because the absolute last thing he needed was an accidental shooting on his record if Henry flailed in his sleep. 

That aside,  _ Walt  _ might well kill him if it came to it. 

Still, he made sure to keep it close enough that he could get to it in a hurry if needed. If he had _ any more _ midnight knockers at his doorstep. 

Omar frowned. “Jesus Christ!” he cursed, shaking his head, wracking his brain as he tried to recall if he had an emergency kit. Did he have one? He should, he knew that much, but he might not have got around to that item.

“Henry, what in the hell happened to you, hmm?”

Henry, for once, said nothing laying still and silent as a corpse in the middle of his living room. It was disconcerting seeing him like this. 

Omar knelt down for his pulse, relieved to find it weak but steady. Even while unconscious Henry flinched away from him but Omar pinned him down with the bulk of his forearm pressing against the other man's chest, which kept Henry pinned flat. He needed to get a better read on the situation so he could figure out how to help. Omar knew then that Henry must have been through some kind of ordeal, there wasn’t enough fight left in the Indian -- not as much as he would’ve expected. 

Omar’s third thought after recognizing the half-dead man as  _ Henry _ and that Longmire would take it poorly should anything happen to his best friend was that he needed a _ hospital.  _ There were no two ways about it -- Henry looked rough. Split lip. Thin scratches and shallow pits dug into his neck and arms, wrists all torn and purple hued from the metal restraints someone had slapped on him. He knew full well Henry hadn’t done all this to himself. Someone out there had some answering to do but it’d have to wait. The hospital was what Henry needed, and stat, but that resource was out of the question with the storm raging, and reception cut out. Roads would be patched with black ice and snowed over -- driving at this hour would see them both over a cliff. Omar grit his teeth, hypothermia most likely trying to set in that was plain enough. Unfortunately, this meant the hospital was out of the question right now. In these conditions it was impossible and the landlines had gone down during a mild storm a couple days back. 

Henry might not make the drive to town anyways; Omar was no doctor but he knew Henry needed warming  _ right now  _ or he was going to die. Omar threw more wood to the fire even though it was hot enough that he was beginning to perspire in his sweater.  _ The hotter it is the better the odds,  _ Omar thought, grabbing all the blankets in the hall closet. 

“Alright, alright,” he said, gearing himself up, “I got this.”

Omar laid his bundle down close to the fire. He caught a glimpse of Henry while he worked, still as a corpse and his mind jumped back in time. Walt, standing as still as a statue over Martha’s grave, his eyes empty pits of blue.  _ Nope, not again. _ Omar thought to himself. 

“Nothing's gonna happen to you on my watch,” Omar said. “First thing first, those clothes gotta go, pal.” 

Knelt down beside the other man allowed him to get a closer look, which is when he saw the ugly bite wound on the left side of Henry’s neck. It was red and raw, newly made he guessed, with a clear impression of blunt -- human -- teeth. It was no wild animal that had done this. A guess he confirmed with the unbuttoning of Henry’s torn vest and flannel shirt. 

There was a notion simmering in the back of his mind but Omar hesitated on jumping to conclusions. There was every chance he might yet be proved wrong. Hell, he _ prayed _ he was wrong.

As if Walt couldn’t get himself into enough trouble alone, Henry had an equally bad habit of sniffing it out. And where Henry went Walt, inevitably, followed.

“What’ve you gotten mixed up in now, hmm?” Omar asked. “Damn trouble magnet, that’s what you are -- you and Longmire both.”

Omar used one of the hairpins Myra was always leaving around the house to fool with the lock mechanism, rotating tension in a counterclockwise pattern to best mimic the motion of a key sliding into a lock. He fiddled with it for sixty seconds and grinned, hearing the faint  _ click  _ as the double-lock popped open. 

Step one was cracking the double-lock, and he’d done that in fine time. Step two was the single-lock. He wiggled the pin into the keyhole with the bent pointing toward the center of the cuffs and applied pressure clockwise. And prayed, for good measure. Henry looked like he was one shudder from shaking right out of his body. Omar felt the mechanism give way, the lock bar disengaged from the ratchet arm as it cracked open. 

Omar threw the cuffs, nearly frozen solid, to the side and manhandled Henry halfway out of his shirt, wincing at the bruises painted yellow, blue, and purple on his dark skin. 

He propped Henry upright on his thighs to see why it was sticking to his back and snarled. Red blood stains had bled through the back of Henry's blue flannel shirt and it made it stick like glue to his skin. 

“Fuck am I sorry about this,” Omar said as he tugged the material off, quick like ripping a bandaid or hangnail. 

Henry made a soft, barely audible keening sound before falling silent. For the first time since he’d laid eyes on the man, Omar was glad he was deeply unconscious because that would have hurt like a son of a bitch.

Omar eyed Henry’s ice-crusted jeans and rubbed at his beard aware of the awkwardness of the situation even with the pall of potential death looming over them both. He was going to have to take the rest of Henry’s clothes off or the blanket and fire couldn’t do their job. 

Still. He wasn’t going to let a man die over touch of social awkwardness. _ Fuck, _ he thought, shaking his head. 

“Well, if I wasn’t afraid of you up and dying in my living room I’d consider niceties, but I haven’t time for all that.” 

Omar sighed. “For what it’s worth, sorry.” 

As a general rule, he preferred to have consent before he took a person's clothes off but given the situation he knows Henry wouldn't find fault with him -- he was too practical a man for that.  _ Henry will understand.  _

Omar shoots off his mouth about the weather, about hunting, about business, anything just to fill up the dead silence that’s taken over his living room as he cuts Henry out of the last of his soaking wet clothes. 

“Sorry ‘bout this, Bear. No really, I am” Omar said, dragging the sharp edge of his bowie along the outer seam of the jeans from ankle to thigh which allowed him to tug them off without jarring the unconscious man too badly. “I usually buy a fella dinner first, being a gentleman and all,” he muttered, taking note of the other marks he found with each layer removed. He wasn’t looking to be a dick but he couldn't put on blinders either and he was finding more marked up skin which told him that he had to be careful; the last thing he needed was to make the situation worse than it already was. It was already pretty fucking bad.

He tried his best to be gentle as he felt for breaks, his touch quick and fleeting as he assessed the wounds. He couldn't help wincing at the damage. 

Teeth imprints at his neck, chest, and thighs. Finger shaped bruises on his upper arms. Nail marks grooved into his hips and he was bleeding. Not enough for the injury -- and that was how Omar viewed it, another injury -- to be more significant than the hypothermia, but still. It was the proof he had been hoping to avoid. 

Omar cursed viciously, looking at his rifle with longing, and swiped at his face angrily. “Shit.” 

Now that he’d got Henry completely naked Omar picked him up and set him on the nest of blankets he'd had ready and waiting, tucking in corners and stacking them up, layer after layer praying it would be enough. Knowing what he did, Omar was doubly uncomfortable with having stripped the unconscious man of his clothes -- even if it was to save his life. Sweat broke out on his forehead and his hands went clammy. 

He was a smart man, he knew what this particular catalog of markings meant.  _ Rape. _ It was an ugly word and someone had gone and done it to Henry. _ Sometimes the world really is shit, isn't it?  _ Omar knelt on the floor, his hands clenching and unclenching as he inhaled through his nose visibly shaking with quiet fury. 

“Shit, shit, shit” Omar exploded, releasing the tension squeezing his chest. He ran a hand through his hair breathing hard as he tried to think. 

“I need to -- to call ---  _ who _ the fuck do I need call?” he cut a glance at Henry who, unsurprisingly, said nothing at all. 

Only people he knew who had a stake in this situation were Walt and Cady Longmire.

Cady adored Henry, everyone knew that. A memory flashed before his eyes of little flame-haired Cady in overalls and a white T-shirt skipping in Henry’s wake as he swept the pavement of his establishment. 

As a girl, she wasn’t often let in the bar and even then not much. She probably hadn’t realized until she was grown that he was sweeping air so she could tell him about her school day. 

_ Yeah, there's Cady. _ But Omar couldn't imagine Henry wanted his Goddaughter dragged into this mess. Maybe not even Longmire. Omar gave up with a sighed knowing he couldn’t call  _ anyone  _ yet. Not until he’d had a word with Henry, he could give the man that much at least after having cut him out of his clothes while he was, thankfully, unconscious. Shit, the only way the situation could have possibly been any worse was if Henry had to be awake while he’d done it. 

  
  


Omar got sucked into the memory of the night when he Myra had gotten into it real bad. That time she had kicked _ him _ out during prime hunting season. Every single hotel and inn had been booked to the brim with tourists and would-be-hunters. He’d gone down to the _ Red Pony _ and drowned his sorrow in the bottom of a bottle pouring out what was quite frankly embarrassing, emotional shit to the local barkeep. Omar still couldn’t remember how the night finished, just flashes of blurred neon lights, the floor rushing up to greet him, and sudden black oblivion. What he did remember was waking the next morning bruised and sore but comfortably sprawled atop a bed that was definitely not his own. He spent a good minute frantic that he’d had a drunken fling but no woman was lying beside him and not a hint of perfume hung in the air. There was a faint hint of cinnamon and sage coming off the white-sheeted pillow he had his nose buried in and when he picked himself up enough to scout his surroundings he spotted the glass of water sitting on the bedside table with a capped bottle of  _ ibuprofen _ .

Henry had just nodded in his direction when he’d finally come down the stairs walking tall like he hadn’t just spilled his guts and passed out drunk like a newbie. Henry never held it against him, never even said a single word. He was that kind of man. 

Omar thought of the past as he looked at Henry, unconscious and beat to hell, and it made him want to grab his rifle and kill something but he didn’t. He couldn't, he had to get the man warm or he was going to die. 

  
  
  
  


Omar didn’t want it to come to that and not just because it would break Longmire’s grizzled old heart clean in two, either. Wasn’t that a revelation -- he’d  _ miss _ the bastard and his smug condescension. 

Omar observed that Henry’s shivers were lessening the nest of blankets under and on top of him and his close proximity to the fire helped bring up his temperature. It doesn’t feel like enough but this was all he’d had to offer: a warm blanket, a hot fire, someone to check that Henry wasn’t dead yet. 

Omar kept vigil, waiting for the worst to be over, for the storm to break, some fucking glimmer of hope to make itself know and promised himself that when Henry pulled through --  _ and he would dammit! _ \-- he’d get the whole story out of the man. 

Maybe then he’d do some shooting. _ Fucking pigs. _


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Omar sees the fall out as Henry trashes in his sleep and realizes he has a heart after all -- dammit. Omar believes in justice but sometimes the law needs a gentle nudge to get things done _right_.

_Omar Rhode's Cabin:_

Omar couldn’t get it out of his head. He wanted a drink. No, one drink wasn’t half enough. He wanted a whole damn bottle of whiskey. Fuck, what was he thinking? This wasn’t even about him. It was about Henry. It was about what had been _done_ to Henry that Omar couldn’t get out of his head. 

Henry was warming up finally. It was a slow uphill climb that had him fretting like a momma hen, he knew what they said in the emergency rooms over hypothermia _‘the only thing worse than being cold was being warm and dead.’_ But that wasn’t going to happen to Henry. Nope. He was getting better and Omar would drag his ass over the finishing line if he had to. There was no way he was letting this be _it_.

The spirit world or whatever it was the other man believed in couldn’t have Henry Standing Bear. Not like this. He wasn’t out of the woods yet, that was true enough. But the edge was in sight which was a damn sight better than before and all Omar could do was think -- this shit really did happen to people. He’d known, of course, but there was a world’s difference between knowing in the _intellectual abstract_ and having it happen to someone, you, what? Didn’t hate? Realized you, maybe, kinda-sorta liked, sometimes? Omar wanted to crawl back to the night he had planned on having, him and _Shelley_ and a bottle of whiskey. 

No half-dead sort-of friends, no having to face up to the fact that the world was a shitty place outside of the confines of a book. But there was no going back. Not for him and not for Henry. Only good thing was Henry didn’t look like a corpse anymore and his skin didn’t feel like half-thawed chicken. The fire and blankets were bringing color back to his face; the only problem was as he began improving Henry started thrashing in the blankets as though trying to shove an invisible force off. Omar tried not to read too much into that shit but Henry made it damn hard.

_‘Stop’_ he’d said, over and over, his face turned away from the crackle and pop of the roaring fireplace sweat shining on his brow. 

If that hadn’t been enough to make Omar feel like shit Henry had gone unnaturally still and quietly begged. 

_He’d fucking begged! What the hell did they do to you, man?_ He didn’t even want to know. Omar could have happily gone his whole life never hearing the man sound that resigned.

_Please._ That’s what he’d said; his voice cracked as if someone had just ripped open his heart. At that moment Omar knew he’d have given him anything he had the power to give, and more besides. Listening to Henry Standing Bear beg for mercy cut him to the quick, left him with a nasty hollowed out pit in his stomach that he wanted to try filling with whiskey. Maybe Omar was projecting, a little but everything about this situation made him fighting mad.

He’d never heard Henry sound like that and he never wanted to again. _Vulnerable_. Like someone had ripped him open to go looking inside for no good reason. Omar swallowed past the mix of anger and sadness clogging his throat. They might not be bosom buddies like Henry and the sheriff but dammit he respected the man. 

This wasn’t right -- none of this was _right_. The worst part, the absolutely shit topping on a shit-cake was when Henry had called out for his friend -- for Walter. Just a time or two, really, but it had been a kick to the ribs hearing. His words were barely louder than the flap of a butterfly's wings.

_‘Make it stop, make it stop.’_

Omar had done the only thing he could. Maybe there’d even been tears in his eyes but hell if he cared. Walt wasn’t here to say it, so he did. He’d grabbed hold of Henry’s hand and promised everything would be okay. It didn’t matter that it was a lie. It helped, the struggling ceased and Henry was able to lay quiet for a spell and Omar knelt at his side waiting for the fever-heat of nightmares clawing at his brain to pass. 

Omar looked at the phone sitting on the white-marble kitchen counter wishing he could call Walt. Let him come up here with his bullheaded forthrightness and tell him what he should do, what he should _say_ because he hadn’t touched a single drop of alcohol and he was already ruminating the pros and cons of murder. It had become _that_ kind of night. 

He was waiting for the microwave to ding, watching the green numbers count down to 0 with one eye fixed on the living room down the hall from the kitchenette. It sounded off and he popped the door grabbing the water bottles and darted back to the living room to tuck one against Henry’s armpits, chest, and abdomen to help bring up his core temperature. He could see that it was working. A warm flush was returning to Henry's features and the shakes had stopped a while ago. All good signs. 

Omar knelt at Henry’s side, pressing the blankets closer to keep out air pockets. “C’mon Bear, don’t you quit on me now. Who else am I gonna argue with, hmm?”

The nickname had just sort of slipped out at the moment. He didn’t know why. He’d heard Henry’s lady friends and a few customers refer to him that way at the _Red Pony_ . His dark eyes had always crinkled a little at the corners when he’d smiled. Omar didn’t know why he’d been thinking of that at a time like this but the nickname had stuck this whole time, rattling in the back of his brain and slipping off his tongue. The fact was it was fitting. Henry Standing Bear was a tough son of a bitch. He had to be. He’d walked God alone knew how many miles barefoot in the snow. Omar genuinely had no clue how he’d done it, maybe it was another one of those _Old Indian Tricks_. Omar would really like to get in on that one if it was. 

Henry thrashed into an upright position under the pile of fleece upending the blankets and the heating bottles. Propped on his elbow he blinked rapidly, his chest rising and falling with quick, short breaths. Right on the edge of bolting. 

“Where...where am I?” he asked blinking around with a confused _what-the-fuck_ look plastered on his face, squinting as though the orange fire-light hurt his eyes.

“Easy,” Omar said. 

Henry remained silent, still disorientated, with the blankets falling down to his waist leaving his upper body bare. It wasn’t cold in the house but Omar tried to get them back in place but Henry wasn’t having it. Henry didn’t much like having him leaning into his space if the way the other man’s muscles tensed up were any indication. 

Henry lashed out blindly, shoving him back a few paces. 

“Get the fuck off me!”

Henry’s response was not unexpected; Omar patiently rolled with it. Only thing hurt was his ass from being knocked back on it. Henry had just woken to find a man leaning over him. Didn’t take a genius to know why he didn’t like it. Shit. He’d have taken a swing, too if their roles had been reversed.

Omar didn’t try to get closer again, respecting Henry's desire for space. 

“Easy, easy now, friend.”

“It’s just me, see? Henry, Henry, you with me?” 

Omar rocked back on his knees, palms up in the universal sign of _‘I come in peace.’_ It wasn’t working as well as he’d have liked. Henry just kept blinking rapidly, looking around with clouded eyes. Was this some kind of fever effect? Maybe he _really_ was out of it. _Dammit, I’m not a doctor!_ Omar refrained from getting worked up and fretting. It wouldn’t do no good, except to put Henry’s back up again.

Omar tried again, locking eyes with Henry across the three feet now separating them. “Bear, I need you to focus alright.” 

Henry froze when he heard the nickname. It threw him off enough that the man stopped pushing away the blankets. Finally. 

“Omar?” Henry said, slowly pronouncing the name, feeling out the sound of it on his lips as if it was taking a moment for name-to-face recognition to compute. “Omar -- what are you doing here?” 

_Oh Sweet Jesus, thank God!_ Omar sat back on his heels and laughed a loud bark of sound rattling from his gut. The heavy weight that had been riding him finally let up and he felt twenty pounds lighter like he’d swallowed helium and could float up to the ceiling, he was damn near euphoric. 

Omar smiled, wide and toothy. “Well, Henry, seeing as it is _my_ house you’re in the better question is what are _you_ doing here?”

Henry went completely motionless as he appeared to take stock of his situation. His gaze flicking to the torn remnants of his clothes, which lay three feet away puddling the carpet with water stains. Right about then, he must have realized he was completely naked under all those blankets because his cheeks flushed hotly. Omar smothered his amusement, this wasn’t the time or the place for it.

“Take it easy.” He grinned, open, and honest.

“You don't got anything I haven’t myself. Besides, I was a perfect gentleman."

Henry’s blankets pooled low at his hips but remained high enough to keep his dignity well covered. Wordlessly Henry tugged them a little tighter, closer, as he watched Omar with dark inscrutable eyes in a moment that seemed to stretch out far too long before he inclined his head. 

“It would seem I did not die after all,” Henry remarked. 

Omar frowned, not wild about how impassive Henry sounded about that fact. He might as well have been commenting on the weather. It was both concerning and upsetting to Omar. He worked hard to keep Henry on the right side of life, dammit.

“No, you didn’t and you know what? I’m glad.” 

Henry quirked an eyebrow startled by his outburst.

“Yeah you heard me all right, I’m glad you’re not dead,” Omar said, picking up steam. “I can tell you this -- I wouldn’t wanna be the man breaking that kind of bad news to Walt and Cady. It would clean break their hearts, you do know that don’t you?”

His shoulders bowed with the weight of guilt he inclined his head in a slow, precise nod. For a second Omar that that would be the only response he’d get but It wasn't.

“I do know...and I am grateful to not be the cause of yet more grief.”

Omar scowled. “Well, good!” 

Henry winced, ducking his head and Omar regretted snapping a little but he didn’t take back his words either. Henry should know by now that there were people who would care, people who’d hole themselves up in their cabin and drink like it was the ending of the world if he were to go exploring the _Undiscovered Country._

“Henry, I gotta ask,” Omar said, licking his lips nervously. 

“Should I be expecting company anytime soon. I know you didn’t do that to yourself, so, is there anything you might want to share?” Omar paused, meeting Henry’s gaze directly, patient and unflinching. 

“Is there anything I might be needing to know?”

Henry frowned shadows from the fire chasing themselves across his face. “No,” he said only to pause, brows furrowing. 

“I do not know,” Henry admitted.

Omar studied Henry’s profile, his glassy eyes, quick shallow breaths, and complete lack of expression. He wasn’t sure what to make of it but thought it could be the onset of shock. Mostly Omar wished Longmire was here instead of him as he was rudely confronted with how unqualified for this he really was. He didn’t know what to do or what to say. _Fuck it! I’ll wing it. I got this._

“Okay, that’s alright -- don’t fret on it.” 

Omar nodded to himself, the last thing he wanted was for Henry to be thinking about whoever it was who’d done this, running him down to Omar’s cabin. This place was safe, he had to have known that. He refused to believe it had been dumb luck that had led Henry to his door when he’d had trouble on his tail.

“Well, don’t you worry too much. I got enough munitions stockpiled here to hold off General Custer and the Continental Army,” Omar assured Henry and he could’ve sworn a smile flickered over Henry’s face for the barest of moments. 

It was only funny because it was true. He kept all of his residences stocked and loaded for bears because out in the backcountry it paid to be prepared. 

Henry still wasn’t looking at him but he spoke. “I have no reason to think anyone will follow me. The men who held me captive must now believe I am dead.”

It had not escaped his notice that Henry used the plural form. It made sense in a way -- two men, those were much better odds as kidnapping and holding on to another human being. 

Omar was certain there was a whole shit ton packed into that one sentence but the important part was he didn’t have to worry too badly about strangers showing up on his doorstep looking for Henry. He’s a bit disappointed, actually. Omar half wished they would. A man’s house was his castle in Wyoming. The moment the bastards stepped through his door he could blow them away and not a soul in the state would blame him. 

It would be by lawful definition a clean case of open-and-shut justified. It would be _justice._ He really wished they would try it. 

Henry cleared his throat breaking the silence. 

“Thank you, Omar.”

Omar huffed, shaking his head. “For what Henry? Not letting you freeze to death on my doorstep? I wouldn’t leave a dog out in this weather, sure wasn’t gonna leave _you_. I don’t need thanks for being a decent human being, Henry. But you can help me by telling me where these sons of bitches are camped so I can call Longmire and point him in the right direction.” 

Omar shook his head, his gaze traveling up and down Henry. “Hell, from the state of you I suspect Longmire will be wanting to have a _specia_ l word with ‘em.”

Henry snorted, shaking his head in denial. “Walt will abide by the law.”

Omar chuckled. “Don’t be so sure.” 

“It is irrelevant,” Henry said. “I am uncertain of the locations, there was little chance for sightseeing,” he quietly explained, his expression completely walled off as his thoughts were turned inward. 

“If I had to guess I would say perhaps five or six miles from here? I cannot be sure.” 

Omar’s brows squinted in thought. “Locations, that's plural then, they moved around?” 

“I was...gone...for about three weeks. So, yes, they moved locations once or twice.”

Omar blinked his mouth falling open. “Shit, Henry. I’m sorry for dragging this up now, but I didn’t even know…”

Henry impatiently waved off whatever banal apology he was going to say with a bitter smile twisting his face into something dark. “It...is what it is.”

Omar knew when to leave well enough alone and moved on, running his hand through his hair in frustration. 

“Some night, huh?” he muttered. “Can I just say this? I’m really glad you’re okay. I thought I was gonna lose you a few times.”

Henry slanted another one of those slow, studying looks his way like he was some mystery that didn’t make sense. 

“I did not know you cared.”

Omar _hmphed_ and got to his feet. “Well, you’re talking, you’re conscious, let's see if we can’t see about walking.”

Henry shrugged. “And where am I to be walking?”

Omar grinned. “The guest bedroom upstairs is much more comfortable than the floor even if the carpet is awesome.”

Henry secured one of the blankets around his shoulders covering himself from neck to knees as he slowly stood up. With a grunt he hauled himself up to his feet, maybe it was that pride of his that had him refusing the hand Omar offered. 

“There is something I would like much more than sleep right now,” he said, slowly following Omar up the stairs.

“You name it, it’s yours,” he said quickly. Maybe too quickly he realized. Henry didn’t comment just _hum-med_ laughing softly, his footfalls silent as a cat. 

“That is a dangerous offer. You do not even know what I was going to ask for.”

“Well, go on then. Enlighten me.”

“It is nothing really.” 

“C’mon.”

“A shower, that is all.”

Omar paused, looking back. “Henry…” he said, letting his sentence trail off unfinished. 

“So, you do know.” Henry stared at him, his face broken open, spilling the secrets of his insides better than any uppercut slice to the gut ever could. Omar quickly averted his eyes, unwilling to take advantage, unwilling to feel anything like pity. Henry deserved better. He also deserved the truth.

“Yeah I know,” Omar agreed.

Henry blinked and the moment ended his secret’s once more safely buried behind the façade of clam betrayed only by his hands rhythmically tightening around the wool blanket. 

Omar opened his mouth to speak, he hadn’t even decided on what it was he wanted to say. It proved a moot point, in the end. Henry held up his hand, cutting it through the air as he asked for his silence. 

“I do not want to speak of it. I want to take a shower. I want to scrub off their dirt and blood and sweat. I want to be myself again, Omar.”

Omar sighed rubbing at the gray bristles on his jaw. “I know that I can understand that even, but the hospital can do a...a rape kit. Evidence and shit-”

Henry cut him off with a wordless snarl. 

“No, you do not know,” he said, his words fading to a low whisper, anger turning to something dark and bitter. Dim lighting catching on the wet sheen of his eyes. “It did not happen to you, Omar.” 

Henry pressed his forehead to the wall, glassy-eyed, his shoulders trembling. Once the first tear broke free, the rest followed in an unbroken stream. 

Omar knew his touch would be unwelcome so he kept his hands fisted at his sides while Henry cried soundlessly in the dimness of the narrow hallway. Omar wasn’t no sympathy crier but something had got into him, his chest felt too tight and his neck was one strained muscle from a charlie-horse. He could feel the vein in his neck throbbing, a call to action. But there was nothing to be done. He felt useless standing there watching a man he respected fall to pieces and there was nothing he could say -- nothing he could do to make it even a little bit okay. This feeling wriggling in his gut? He _hated_ it. 

Omar ducked his head, muttering _‘shit’_ as he steeled his face, grinding his teeth against the fly-away feelings crashing through his brain. He might not be a sympathy crier -- but he sure wasn’t made of stone. 

Henry’s words were rough with emotion when he finally spoke. “It was humiliating. I was _nothing_. It was not even about race -- that might have been easier, that I am used to. I was just something they fucked. You cannot understand. I would not wish that understanding on you.”

“Henry…” Omar let his words fade into the silence. What could he say to that? Nothing, a whole lot of nothing. He wondered if Longmire would know what to say at a time like this. Maybe so. Longmire was a wise man, sometimes. It just sucked that he didn’t know what to say.

Henry swiped at his face angrily. “You were not tied down and -- and raped for nothing, for amusement. That happened to _me_. I need to wash them off.”

Omar frowned, closing his eyes. Henry was right. 

He didn’t know, how could he? It hadn’t happened to him, it had happened to Henry. If what he needed was a shower then he could take a fucking shower.

“No, guess I don’t know,” he said. He just opened the door to the bathroom across from the guest room listening to it close and lock with a soft click. 

It wasn’t his place to decide what Henry did or did not do. He knew that. But shit, they were going to get away with this, weren’t they? _Fucking pigs._

“Fuck!” Omar snarled, kicking the wall. 

His steel-toe boot slammed into the wall hard enough that paint chipped off. Omar stood in the hallway as the water in the bathroom turned on. It stayed on for two hours and he waited in the hall for the entire time. He was bone tired, the kind of tired that reached deep inside but he didn’t leave his spot in the hall. He didn’t know what to say, to do, but he could stand here and make sure Henry wasn’t alone. He didn’t think being alone was a good idea, just now. Or maybe it was just his protective streak acting up, wanting, no, _needing_ something he could do.

So, here he stood. Propped against the wall, listening to the wind howl. It was still quieter than his own churning thoughts.

He grabbed his harmonica from the downstairs bookshelf before returning to his post, rubbing grit from his eyes. He played to pass the time, the lilting sound of music easing the tension building up in his shoulders. He wasn’t the best, but it was easy enough on the ears and it helped calm the wild turning of his thoughts.

As he played old tunes and waited and thought, the hot rage he’d experienced fits and starts was replaced with piercing calculation. An idea began spinning in the back of his mind. It was a long shot, risky as hell. But it might work. He could make it work. He set down his harmonica and plucked his cell from his back pocket. The cell rang and rang and rang but when no one answered Omar left a terse message.

_Mr. Bell, it’s Omar. Meet me at Joe's Diner, open 24 hours, shit coffee. I know that arrangement you had with Mr. Hersham. I want the same deal. Two thousand upfront. Bring as much of the hardest shit you can get ahold of in the next two hours. No questions. Call me._

Omar paused, steepling his hands, thinking. _If Longmire waltzes onto the scene and catches them with their hands down their pants these dumb-shits could serve anywhere from 2 to 10 years, the fines ranging from thirty hundred to twenty thousand dollars fine. It’s not perfect, but it’s something._

Omar stared down at his cellphone as if he could make it ring through force of will alone. It didn’t work so he waited. “I still need to track them back to their campsite, five to six miles is a large area of land to search” he muttered. His brows pinched as he wondered about his odds of backtracking Henry’s trail.

When the door opened Henry did not appear surprised to see him still there, waiting, when he exited the bathroom. His skin was maybe a bit red from over-scrubbing but he was clean smelling and free of the dirt and blood that had been clinging to him for God knew how long.

Henry stood at the entrance of the guestroom. He was close enough that Omar could smell that cinnamon and sage scent he’d remembered from that one time. His ravens-wing black hair curled a bit when it was wet. He’d never noticed that before, but then he’d also never seem him straight out of the shower either.

The moment felt charged, as he took in the new, clean-smelling version of Walt’s best friend. And then it was over.

The upstairs lights were dim and Omar couldn’t read Henry’s expression, a hell of a poker face that one, but he looked like he’d come into some kind of peace. Somehow Omar doubted it but he wasn’t going to pry.

Henry tried on a smile, or the ghost of one, his mouth turning upward a fraction. Omar gave him credit for trying. “I did not know you played.”

“You heard that, huh?” Omar replied fiddling with the harmonica. “Yeah, well, suppose there’s plenty about me you don’t know, Bear.”

Omar directed a quick, assessing look at the man and nodded to himself. “You’re looking better,” he said. 

“I am feeling better.”

“Good, good. With your permission?” Omar asked motioning towards the pile of sterile bandages he’d set on the bed. “I don’t want those welts on your back getting infected. Might be able to save you some scarring, too.”

Henry dipped his head, stiffly settling on the edge of the bed, folding the blanket he’d been wearing down to his waist leaving his back bare to the cool night air. 

“Okay then,” Omar said, quickly inspecting the raw wounds. They were red and puffy but cleaned from shower water and soap. Less chance for infection. 

“This may sting,” he muttered in warning as he dabbed at the edges with peroxide. The muscles of Henry’s back quivered under Omar’s clinical ministrations but he made no sounds, his breathing remaining quiet and steady. 

Henry's skin was red from scrubbing and his wounds no longer bled. Once they healed he would have thin, white scars running down the line of his back. Omar didn’t ask if he was still bleeding -- _down there_ \-- he figured if there was a line not to cross that should be it. Maybe that was wrong of him, but he had nothing to go by but instinct and Henry seemed calm, and if not that, at the crossroads to finding some kind of peace with the situation. He wasn’t looking to ruin that. 

Omar was relieved that the welts on his back would have a chance to scar. More so than he had expected. It was going to keep him up at night thinking about what might have happened if he and Myra hadn’t gotten into it, _again_. If he hadn’t been out here all alone licking his wounded pride. It didn’t bear thinking about what might have happened if he hadn’t been here to answer the door. 

When he was finished Henry resembled a half-wrapped mummy, white bandages circling around his torso and back to keep his wounds from tearing open in the night. Omar whistled aloud and stepped back. 

“Okay. All done. There’s a change of clothes in the dresser, sweats, t-shirts, take whatever you need. I’m going downstairs. If you need anything, let me know yeah?” Omar said, already backing up to give Henry room. 

“Good night,” Omar said, turning away and going back down the stairs. As he slipped down the stairs to throw more wood onto the fire he heard his cell phone deep. Mr. Bell had received his message and texted his answer. 

_Two hours. Joe’s Diner_. 

  
Omar grinned -- a Timberwolves baring of teeth -- and grabbed his .38, stuck his bowie snug to his waist, and stepped out the front door. He didn’t _need_ all that per say, but seeing as he didn’t know exactly what he was walking into it made him feel a bit better. Shit, this felt like something straight out of a Indie film where the hero went off to meet with a drug dealer to set up two asshole rapists. Only thing missing was a pretty, dark-eyed _senorita_.

Somehow, he didn’t see Henry being too _grateful_ seeing as he just wanted to forget it ever happened and get on with his life. Well, that was Omar’s impression of the situation anyhow. He could be wrong; but he didn’t think he was about this. Now, he didn’t know what Longmire would do, but it probably wouldn't be this. Hell, definitely not this, but he had to do _something_. Just wasn’t right. Fucking pigs walking free when this was going to be something Henry would have to live with for the rest of his life.

_Okay. Showtime._


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Omar puts his plan into motion. Back at the cabin Henry, finally, surrenders giving in to some real sleep.

_ Joe’s Diner: _

He felt like a drug dealer skulking outside a 24-hour diner leaning against his car the same as every B-movie creeper. All he needed was a cigarette and one of those flashy gold plated guns sticking out from the waist of low, sagging pants like the ones dealers in the movies carried. Mr. Bell had better get his ass here soon. Before someone wised up and called the authorities on his ass. He could just see it now. Longmire’s old  _ Bronco _ rolling into the nearly abandoned parking lot with its busted street lights and trash-littered pavement.

_ ‘Omar. What are you doing out here this time of night?’ _ he might ask, calm and stoic as he tried to get a read on the situation.  _ ‘Oh nothing, nothing, just love the coffee here,’  _ he might shoot back smiling to hide the unease settling in his gut.

_ ‘The coffee here is for shit. Everyone knows that Omar, hell you’re the one who told me the coffee here is for shit. What are you really doing?’ _ he’d ask as he ambled closer keeping a loose hold on that .46 because this all was awfully strange and Walt was a cautious man. A smart man, too. 

He’d be stuck then nice and deep in a hole he couldn’t dig out of. After all, what could he say? The truth, maybe. _ ‘I’m making a drug deal -- but hey Don’t worry, Walter! I’m not fixing to pick up a habit. Just set up the assholes who fucked your best friend and left him for dead. Wait, you didn’t know about that?’ _

Omar couldn’t imagine, even in the confines of his head, how the rest would play out after that moment. Would that confession take the wind right out of Longmire’s high-and-mighty sails or would he just turn to immovable stone? His face would harden and the light behind in his eyes might dim a little, the way the ugly truths had of sucking the life out of everything, but what would he do? Omar really didn’t know. 

_ 'The law is the law,’  _ he might say, and he would be hurting sorely. Because, of course. This was about Henry. 

But he would want to handle it differently. See it done lawfully and shit. Because the difference between him and Walt was that the sheriff still believed in the system and the fundamental  _ goodness _ of people. Omar had left that kind of idealism behind a long time ago. Gossip, he’d learned, was the worst kind of virus. It was the kind people infected each other with passing it on one to the other until the truth got buried in a dark, deep hole where it would rot until  _ Judgement Day _ . Once people got a thought stuck in their head there was no way of disabusing them of it. Henry was a good man, but he wasn’t white, he ran a bar, and he was an Indian; that was three black marks against him already to some people. Not all, of course. But just one was all it took to make a bad situation worse. 

This kind of shit -- it ruined lives. It ruined people. Most of all he didn’t want to see that happen to Henry. Fact is, Omar didn’t know what Longmire would say or do and he doesn’t want to stick around to find out. When, or  _ if _ , Walt ever hears about this business it won't be from him.  _ No siree.  _

He’d had to make a stop at a bank to get the money. The good thing about having as much money as he did? He could pull this kind of money out in digital transactions without having to worry about keeping up with bills. Omar leaned against the hood of his truck, slanting another glance at the gear stored in the cab. Ski mask, disposable cell, and masking tape. Hell, maybe he was a little bat-shit insane. Before he could carry that thought further Mr. Bell pulled up, smiling and waving like they were buddies meeting to catch up on the good old days. Omar grinned halfheartedly, his hand lifted in a wave figuring he was less of a drug dealer slash movie cutout creeper when he wasn’t skulking alone with his face set in a scowl. He wasn’t Batman and he didn’t need people noticing him right now.

“Here you go, Mr. Rhodes. One large New-York style pizza.” Omar cracked the lid, checking that everything was in order and discreetly handed over the worn brown duffel bag. 

The man sighed, his face twisting in a frown, “You know what you’re doing right, procedures, and stuff?”

“Look, look. I know you said no questions. I just wanna know you won’t accidentally off yourself or something, you know? Longmire is not a man I want to be on the wrong side of.” Mr. Bell swallowed, rubbing the back of his neck and his eyes darted around the parking lot. Anxious, maybe. 

Omar blew out a breath. He decided that he could share a little. The dealer who sold him the drugs had no reason to rat him out. It was bad for business. 

“This isn’t what it looks like, okay? Less you know the better. But if you gotta know, most of this shit is just...theatrics...scattered like a trail of heroin bread-crumbs.”

Mr. Bell leaned forward, squinting. “You alright there Mr. Rhodes? I don’t mean to pry but you look a little peaked, unless that’s the normal you in which case, you look fine!”

Omar rubbed his chin, torn between amusement and disgust. He must look like shit if his drug dealer was getting concerned about his health. 

“It has been a long night...a really fucking long night, Mr. Bell,” he confessed, and kept talking while the drug dealer leaned against his vehicle hanging on his every word. Sharing a little information couldn’t hurt. “A few assholes messed with a friend of mine -- more of a friend's friend really. Still. They really messed him up bad.” The truth was it felt good to talk, share a bit of the weight dragging at him. 

Omar watched understanding dawn on the other man’s face. He was very expressive, for a drug dealer. And attentive. The man nodded, his eyes widening as he put together what Omar wasn’t saying. “I get it, that’s slick, man. You're buying them drugs  _ and _ throwing a bone to the local lawman.”

Mr. Bell whistled appreciatively. He took the duffel bag and discreetly stuffed a few stacks of hundreds under his coat before shoving the rest back into Omar’s arms. 

“Clever man, Mr. Rhodes.”

“What’s this about?” Omar demanded as he accepted the duffel bag full of cash from the drug dealer. 

“The worlds a funny place, y’ know? I meet all kinds in this line of work. Not many like you, Mr. Rhodes,” the man said, shaking his head with a wry look. “Keep the cash, it’s nice to be reminded not all the world is made up of assholes. Besides, I knew from that message you were desperate and asked for more than what's fair. I didn’t know what was really going down. Now I do. Wouldn’t be right, me keeping it all.”

“Well, alright then,” Omar said shouldering the duffel back.

Mr. Bell turned back to his car, slanting one last wave over his shoulder. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope this turns out like you hope and I never see you again.”

Omar got back into his cab and sat there holding the steering wheel for what felt like hours but was really only a handful of minutes. Huh. Maybe there was room for idealism if a drug dealer could turn down cash for a feel-good story. It really was turning out just like in the movies, the shady character turned out to have a heart of gold. Still, a pretty _ senorita _ wouldn’t be amiss. 

Omar looked around the empty lot and didn’t think that was in the card tonight. 

He started up the engine and pointed his vehicle home. Tracking down the assholes might be more of a challenge than getting the drugs. Omar wasn’t sure when, but somewhere down the road, they stopped being men with individual names and lives to him. Now, they were just  _ the Assholes _ . Men, real men, didn’t do what they had done. 

He pulled into his driveway cutting the engine and lights, breathing a sigh of relief to see that the house was still cloaked in darkness. It meant Henry was probably still asleep. He didn’t strike Omar as the skulk in the dark kind. Besides, some decent sleep would do him a world of good. He didn’t think his sleep could have been all that productive wherever it was he’d been held. It would’ve been like sleeping with a rattler in the blankets. Omar shuddered.

He shook off his dark thoughts, returning to the matter at hand. He tossed a tan-colored hunting blanket over the worn brown duffel bag and grabbed the second gray bag, the one with the heroin, infrared night vision binoculars, masking tape, and the black ski mask. He figured on only needing the mask but things happened sometimes. Plans had a way of going sideways. 

It turned out tracking Henry's path back to The Assholes was easier than he’d expected. Between blood drops, snapped branches, and heavy, dragging footprints in the snow he had made good time closing in on the location just as the sun was turning the world grey in the twilight hours or early morning. 

The RV was parked in an open field with about fifty feet of grass and low lying vegetation and a dense forest line in the westward direction. He could see light coming from the main section of the vehicle and there were two cars on the premises. Black ski mask secured over his face he hunkered low to the ground and closed the distance, stepping quick and light. careful to avoid snapping branches or twigs in case the assholes were more alert than they seemed. He pressed his back to the outside of the RV, his lip twitching in disgust at what he could hear. From this position, ear close to the small cracked window, he could hear over the top going on’s. One of the assholes was watching porn. Omar could hear the distinct sound of sex blaring through the audio speakers. Taking a risk he peered in and saw the empty beer bottles littering the floor. They were almost making this too easy. Picking an RV lock couldn’t be much harder than standard issue police cuffs. He was right, it wasn’t. 

Omar eased inside unseen as a moving shadow. The man inside never saw a thing. Omar had caught him with his hand down his pants. Literally. The man was younger than he expected, he didn’t know why he’d expected anything but it had been someone older, more craig faced. Not this baby-faced young man with floppy brown hair. Still, a baby-faced rapist was still a  _ rapist _ . Omar showed him no quarter as he grabbed him by the sides of the neck and counted down to ten before releasing his grip. He heard the laptop screen crack as it hit the floor, lying horizontally on its side the video was still playing. Omar stared at the unconscious body at his feet unblinking and cold-eyed.  _ For Henry, you son of a bitch.  _

Omar stepped over the broken laptop when he heard it. His eyes narrowed, a crease forming between his brows. He knew that voice, dammit.  _ Stop _ . How many times had he heard that word tonight? Too damn many as he knelt by the flickering orange firelight Henry’s hand tightly clasped in his own. _ Stop _ . He’s never going to hear that word and not see the broken-open vulnerability written on the sharp angles of Henry’s face. Omar didn’t need to see the screen to know what it was. He wanted to smash the laptop, make it stop, once and for all. But he didn’t. This would be a crime scene soon. He would leave it up to Longmire to be deciding what to do when,  _ if _ , he found the damned thing. All he could do was pray he did the  _ right  _ thing when he did find it. 

Asshole number two was still asleep and it struck Omar as unfair that he looked so peaceful. He didn’t have purple shadows under his eyes or hand-print bruises. He wasn’t thrashing in his sleep. He looked like he was sleeping the sleep of the clear-minded.  _ Psychopath, how many others are there I wonder? _ Omar stared down at the prone man and knew, deep in his gut, Henry wasn’t the first human being this psycho had put through hell. 

There was never just one victim with these kinds. There was always a trail of abuse: the lucky living and the unlucky dead.

Omar knelt over him getting a good grip. This one woke up his eyes popping wide and he fought hard. He got in a good struggle but it didn’t matter. Omar counted back to ten and let go. 

He was not dead, just unconscious. 

Omar stared down at his black-gloved hands and felt deeply numb. It had to be done. He knew that. He just wished it could have been  _ more _ . A part of him wanted to cross that line but he refrained. He was just giving the law a _ nudge _ \-- he wasn’t the law himself. If he crossed that line there would be no turning back. He knew that, too. It didn’t take long before he was hiking back to the tree-line, homeward bound. Injecting the assholes with a small amount of the drug, not enough to harm, just enough to make his plan stick, he'd left them rolled on their sides so they wouldn't drown in their own vomit in the time it took for Longmire or one of his deputies to get their ass out here. He hoped it wasn’t Vic. 

He’d scattered some of the white power at the RV door and left the rest tucked in the small cabinet. They’d have a hell of a time combatting possession charges when Longmire arrived. It looked like they’d gotten into white-sugared donuts. Caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar just waiting for Longmire to haul off to jail. Hell, he may as well have gift wrapped them with a bright red bow. 

Omar pulled out his disposable cell and played his final card. He made sure to disguise his voice as he spoke. The last thing he needed was for this to go pear-shaped in the closing act. 

“I need to report illegal activity down by the Buffalo Horn Range. Yeah, yeah. I’ll wait.” 

Omar stood there in the dark watching the sun crest the horizon as he was put on hold.  Damn good thing this wasn’t a real emergency.

“Yeah, still here. So, I stumbled off the Penrose Park trail some ways back. Coordinates? Oh, um, how the hell should I know that?” Omar said, swallowing back the answer. He was pretending to be a tourist --tourists didn’t know shit. 

“I’m just visiting. Yeah.” Omar nodded, even though there was no one to see. “Two men, they looked like they’d been partying hard. No, no, it’s not illegal I know that dammit. But I’m not sure they were breathing.”

Omar snapped the cell phone closed, chuckling to himself.  _ That _ would get the law moving in the right direction. The threat of imminent death was a good motivator.

_ Omar Rhodes Cabin: _

The cabin was silent. It was insulated from the cold by three feet of strong cedar. Henry would not be surprised to learn Omar had built it with his own two hands. A home away from home he could retreat to when he and Myra were fighting. For two people who claimed to be in love, they fought quite a bit. Henry stared at the ceiling and snorted, it was not as though he could talk. Walt had not spoken to him for well over three weeks and they had not even had a fight. At least Omar could be sure of what he had done wrong. The thought of losing Walt, his best friend, made his insides ache. That was a hurt almost worse than what  _ they _ had done. Or perhaps he could only feel that way now that they were firmly in his past? Henry sighed. It did not matter. Walt and his Grandmother were all Henry had in this world. He could not lose him, too. 

He would go to Walt and see if this, if  _ they _ , could be fixed. Once, there had been Martha, too. So very bright. Beautiful in the way that came from possessing a good spirit. And just as fiercely stubborn as her husband. But now it was just down to them against the world.  _ Maybe Walt has forgotten, maybe I should have said.  _ Henry turned on his side, wincing as his back protested. Henry could almost smell the scent of fresh-cut wood and sawdust as he drifted between worlds, the waking, and the sleeping, fighting the clawing grasp of sleep. It had been so long he had forgotten how to let go. He had forgotten how to surrender without blood, bruises, and beating. 

His ears strain for noise, the telltale creak and groan that would snarl, dark and forbidding.  _ ‘This was all a dream, you stupid Indian.’  _ He stared into the dark for egg-white human faces, leering and hovering as they breathed into his ear, _ ‘did you think you got away?’  _ He watched. He waited. For hands grabbing, pressing new bruises into his skin. The claiming press of a body laid on top of his back. _ ‘You’re mine first.’ _

It never came to pass and yet still he waited, his stomach tied in knots, his heart beating hard against his chest, but he heard nothing come for him in the dark. He waited patient and unmoving, his eyes straining for human shapes in the darkness but still, he saw nothing. The cabin remained blessedly silent. All he could hear was his own quiet breathing as he lay on his side in a bed he did not have to share. His hands were free of the restrains; only the aching phantom pain of the silver restrains encircling his wrists remained. He was  _ free _ but still, his spirit wandered the infinite corridors. Unmoored.

  
  
  


Eventually, Henry fell into a deep sleep contenting himself with the knowledge that Walt’s friend could shoot the wings off a fly at half a mile. Besides, this was  _ Omar's  _ cabin. There would be guns, the man had promised as much earlier in the night. Enough to hold back an army was embellishment no doubt, but there were weapons. Enough to defend the premises if the need arose. He would not be caught helpless again. 

He was warm and he was safe, the soft press of thick, wool blankets chasing the winter chill from his bones. His wandering mind drifted, hunting after the promise of real sleep in a real bed; if only he let go. There was no need to fight, everything would work itself out in time and he would be well. There was time enough to call back the pieces of himself that had been torn. He was safe here and he could sleep now. 

  
  



	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Longmire confronts the man who held his best friend captive for three weeks and there is a very serious miscommunication of facts --- namely that Henry Standing Bear is dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _This is Walt's very bad, no good, day._

_Absaroka Police Station:_

  
  
  


Walt got the call he’d been waiting on at 6 O’clock on a Monday and Ruby took the information. It just figured the second he stepped out for coffee the damn phone rang. Still. The good news was Walt now had a lead, a witness, and general direction because the suspects were last spotted driving in the direction of the Buffalo Horn Range. The bad news was this information was already about a week old by the time it reached his office. It came down to him by way of Old Mr. Moore who claimed he’d been taking a morning walk when he had seen a white RV with a green stripe hitched to a beat-up _Dodge Ram_ pulled over on the side of the road bordering his property line. As it goes, he’d seen two young men, one had walked over to ask for gasoline while the other had remained in the cab with the vehicle on idle. By all accounts, they had looked like the friendly sort enough so that Mr. Moore had not hesitated to help them out. Mr. Moore had reportedly become increasingly distraught over the line when he’d found out that the two men were wanted by law enforcement concerning an ongoing kidnapping case and not some minor misdemeanor. Walt didn’t know too many people who had BOLO’s out for minor infraction but then, he supposed, it could happen from time to time. What got to Walt, like a thorn in his side, was when Ruby said the old man felt guilty for not suspecting something was wrong. There was a lot of that going around. _Pointless guilt._

Moore hadn’t done a thing wrong. Neither had Walt for that matter but it sure didn’t feel that way when his best friend was still missing on his watch. _Nothing for it now but to talk to the man. Maybe he knows something he forgot to tell Ruby,_ Walt thought, keeping his attention fixed on the road. It had been known to happen, a witness called in information, but then the deputy arrived to speak with them personally they remembered some detail. Talking face to face still had its place in the world and Walt didn’t care if cell phones were easier; there were just some things that should be done in person. Talking to witnesses was one of those things. 

Ruby had passed on that Mrs. Moore had taken the phone from her husband where she had succinctly informed Ruby that Mr. Moore needed to take his medication before hanging up. Walt didn’t blame her too much. Old Moore had been in and out of the hospital diagnosed with a weak heart just last month; this kind of excitement could be detrimental to the old man's health. Mrs. Moore was protective as a she-wolf but Walt knew he could get her to see reason if he had to. Lives were at stake. It was selfish as fuck to even consider but Walt didn’t want anything happening to Henry for his own sake, too. It was not something Walt could make peace with just yet. Henry not being around. Also, he needed to apologize or this was going to eat him up inside for the rest of his life. When this was all over he was going to pony up and put his cards down on the table, see what happened. So, he and Mr. Moore would have themselves a very calm, very boring chat about two suspects and then Walt would leave.

It was not a promising lead but it was all he had. No use sitting around where there was a witness to be talking too. He hated feeling useless, chasing feathers scattering in the wind. Hoping he came away with the right one, all while knowing if he didn’t Henry could die. Walt grit his teeth. _Holden, you son of a bitch._

As he drove he kept thinking back to what he’d learned at _Milton’s General Store,_ which did nothing good for his blood pressure. _Condoms, Goddamn condoms!_

Walt had seen some shit doing this job. He’d been witness to the aftermath in the vacant stares of women who’d been victimized, teenage girls with puffy red eyes, running mascara, and shaking hands. Left with a hurt some would spend their whole lives overcoming. All because of men who thought _no_ meant _yes_ and thought a person's consent was negotiable. So, he’d seen some shit over the years, and each time he’d said a prayer of thanks that it wasn’t someone he knew, wasn’t his Cady. He’d never thought he’d end up here. Driving down an empty road wondering if his best friend was dead or alive and if he’d been fucking _raped_ by two male suspects. He had never seen this coming. 

Guilt rode him hard. It was written in the harsh lines grooving his face. Driving allowed him time to think but it wasn’t doing him any favors. He stewed in bitter regret of the life-choices that had led to this moment, squinting through the windshield his eyes stinging, alone with the ghosts of _maybe_ hanging over his head. Maybe Mr. Moore had really seen Holden's vehicle, maybe he hadn’t. Maybe Henry was still alive. _Maybe. Maybe. Maybe._ Doubts flocked like a kindness of ravens, circling in an endless loop, a black cloud of feathers _cawing_ and _cackling_. He could feel it in the tightening of his throat and short intakes of breath. The pressure was building in his chest, an invisible hand closing around the organ pumping blood into his body, he swerved over on the side of the road, jerking the brake as he bowed over the steering wheel.

He couldn’t breathe. 

Stuck in his head Walt gulped down air, his ears were ringing, and his hands white-knuckled the steering wheel. He was 11 years old again and his sweet, old Grandmother Mary had died. Walt had been inconsolable. Henry had stood shoulder to shoulder with him at the funeral procession. They had gotten a few strange looks but people got used to it; the white boy and the Indian. It was _Walt and Henry_ and that's just how it was. Henry and his silent presence had been a pleasant, unexpected kindness. 

He was 13 years old and Rusty his faithful golden retriever passed away and he held it all inside until he couldn’t anymore -- a pressure keg of waterworks just waiting to go off in private. Henry helped him pick the perfect spot and together they dug the grave. Walt had quietly cried until the blue sky was blotted by tears. Henry had put an arm around his shoulder until he felt better.

He was 18 years old and he had finally realized what it was he was feeling when Henry went off with Sally Jennings after prom. She was better for Henry than his on-again-off-again flame Deena Two Camps, sure, but Walt found he did not like it, or her. How could he? Walt was in love and no matter how much literature he read he didn’t have the right words to say it. 

He was 37 years old and still as taken with _Walt and Henry_ as he was when they were boys and, maybe, it didn’t matter that there were things he wanted to say that had been left unspoken. There was no more time. The _ticking-tocking_ clock had run down, all the grains of sand sifting through his fingers to lie on the beach, and just like that. It was over. It was just Walt, _again_ , staring into the howling dark alone.

He squeezed his eyes closed, took a breath, and let it go. He was putting the horse before the cart. As he struggled to regulate his breathing the words of Arthur Schopenhauer, a 19th-century philosopher, came to him. _Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things._ How apropos. He knew what he should have said now. He knew what it was that he wanted. _Everything._ It was the simplest thing in the world. He doesn’t know what took him so damn long. 

As Walt sat in his car feeling his heart pounding in his chest and listening to the _Ford Bronco’s_ heater rattle he had never understood _Schopenhauer_ more than at that moment. He hated it, this feeling clawing at him that made his eyes sting, stealing the breath from his lungs. He supposed everyone was allowed a bit of stupidity but this fills up his yearly quota. He loved his best friend, which was no great revelation, neither was the ache in his heart now. He’d always felt it was a state of being, loving someone, and it was one he’d been circling since that fateful day at the water fountain when they were boys. As per usual, it just took him a spell to catch up. He had never said, Henry had never said, but it’s always been something he could know, could count on in the past. It didn't matter if they fought, who threw the first punch, who cared -- they both got in their hits -- taking first blood -- and when the dust settled they moved on. It was a state of being, loving someone, it could be as easy as falling into the sharp breeze that cut through the mountain range, sweet-smelling and strong, before the onset of winter. Or as hard as an uphill climb, but if it was like that then it wasn’t right, not for you, not for them. 

Being with Henry and Marth had never been that kind of hard, it had been the kind of hard that scared him shitless because he needed them so badly, loved them so hard, he couldn’t see the light somedays -- except reflected in their eyes. When he was working a case turned ugly all he wanted at the end of the day was to take off his hat and sit by the fireplace, not speaking, but being with Martha, her head against his chest and her small, strong hands wrapped around him to keep him from flying to pieces. Maybe he’d stop by the _Red Pony_ on days like that and drink like he meant to forget the world. He knew Henry wouldn’t let him fall on his ass, or let him go too far, neither, and when the day was done and everyone had left he’d offer a drink, a bed, a place to just drown in the good kind of _feeling_ that had always come easy between them. They were his safe places when the world was just that little bit too ugly around the edges -- the reminder. There was still stuff worth doing the job for, still good people that made it worth doing the job right. 

So, yeah. He loved Henry for the silence and stillness he brought; he was a razor line of clarity that cuts through the din of the ordinary. Could see right through his bullshit, too. Challenged him, and in the end, made him a better man for it. Didn’t mean he hated this feeling any less -- this swirling chaos encroaching on the orderliness of his thoughts. He didn’t just _want_ Henry, he didn’t just _love_ him, he _needed_ Henry, dammit. After 37 years of friendship, he didn’t want to find out who _Walt_ was without Henry Standing Bear. 

Each moment spent sitting here was a moment wasted but what was he supposed to do? 

He couldn’t fucking _breathe_. 

His vision swam, edges clouding. That’s when he heard his friend's voice clear as a bell sitting through the panicked thud of his heart behind his breastbone. It was like Henry was sitting right there in the cab the same as he had a hundred times before. _Take a deep breath Walt and count to 5. Good, that is good. Hold your breath and count backward, three, two, one. Slowly exhale to a count of seven._

Walt exhaled, breath escaping on a jagged sigh. He looked over to his right the words on his lips fading out. “Thanks, Henry...” He was alone in the cab but he’d swear he’d caught the scent of cinnamon; the only creature in sight was the dark-feathered eagle that tilted its head to peer down at him. Maybe he was losing his mind.

There existed two parallel realities right now. In one of them, Henry was alive, and in the other, Henry was dead -- for now, he was _Schrodinger’s cat_. Both alive, and dead. He was afraid to open the box to find out the truth and yet not knowing was eating him alive. But he was the sheriff and he couldn’t idle here having a break-down on the side of the road where anyone could see. He’s wasting precious time sitting here with his eyes shut -- even if he was Goddamn tired. Exhaustion was slowing him, getting him tangled in morose self-recriminations. He rubbed at his eyes, beard stubble scraping skin. He was starting to look a little too rough, dammit. He wasn’t as young as he used to be. Without sleep burgers and black coffee only worked for so long these days. Movement caught his eye and he squinted into the grey pre-dawn skyline as an eagle glided past the windshield, perching on a bare Tamarack beside its mate. Walt took the sighting as a good omen, some tribes considered the eagle a sacred animal, symbols of courage and strength. He could use a bit of that right now. Taking the sighting for a good sign Walt pulled back onto the road and pulled himself together as he turned up Mr. Moore’s driveway.

Moore was out in his yard when Walt arrived which meant he wouldn’t have to answer to _Mrs. Moore_ just yet which suited him fine. “Looking to make a raccoon hat, there, Mr. Moore?” Walt asked shutting the cab door as he joined Moore in peering down at the furry animals wiggling black button noses at the two men. Walter tried not to find them cute. 

  
  
  


Mr. Moore chuffed out a wheezing laugh. “No, no Walt. I couldn’t do that. Just between us two men, I know why they keep rooting through the yard. It’s the Missus, I saw her leave out food for the rascals.”

Walt barked out a laugh despite his grim mood. “Relocating?” he asked.

“Relocating,” Mr. Moore agreed. “They need their fur, I expect. More than I need a new hat, leastwise. I’ll tell the Missus that I want a good hound dog to raise up, see what she says. I’d rather give food scraps to an animal of my own -- might even be nice, y’ know? I had me a good dog when I was a boy, no reason not to take in one of those _Best Friend’s Sanctuary_ rescues I saw on the television.”

Walt nodded, his thumb hooked in his belt as he eyed the other man. This meant a lot to him, he could see that old shine back in his eyes again. The same kind he’d seen in Cady’s eyes before she came home with Scooter, a local stray. He’d had fleas, worms, hell, there wasn’t much he didn’t have but with a little care he’d turned out to be a fine dog for his little girl.

“I can see you’ve given it some thought.”

Moore smiled. “I have, my mind’s made up, just as soon as the missus is on board I’ll start making calls.” 

  
  
  
  


“Well, good luck with that,” Walt said, keeping an eye on the door to see if Mrs. Moore was going to tell him to get off her property and leave her husband in peace. She was a formidable woman who was known to be mighty overprotective when it came to Mr. Moore.

“Listen, Mr. Moore. I came down here to ask about that RV vehicle sighting you told Ruby about. Is there anything else you can think of?”

“I really do hate to disappoint you Longmire, but I just don’t know what else I can tell you.” 

Mr. Moore picked up the raccoon cage and tucked it into the back of his pickup. “There were two men, one I met briefly, he was young, kind of baby-faced if you ask me? White. The other man I only caught a glance of. He waited in the cab, baseball cap pulled low -- as I said. I didn’t make much of it at the time. I hope I’m not sending you on a goose chase, sheriff I didn’t get a clear look at the license plate you know?” Mr. More said, rubbing the dirt on his hands off onto his grease-stained jeans. He’d been tinkering with the car. 

Walt shook his head, patting Moore on the shoulder. “No, it makes sense if the suspect is going up into the mountains. It’s a good way to try and shake loose pesky law enforcement types.”

“You would know best, Longmire. I told you before, we keep getting more tourists out this way. I wish they would just stick to the towns.” Mr. Moore sighed, “No man can stop progress. Many tried, many failed. But I like the land the way it is.”

Walt, gently, clapped the old man on the back. “I hear you, Moore. _‘One touch of nature makes the whole world kin’_ …”

“You read Shakespeare?” Mr. More asked, his eyes brightening. 

“Doesn’t every boy? If only to impress the girls?” Walt said, pulling out a photo of Holden and showing it to the old man.

“Yeah, that’s him,” Moore said. “I do wish I could have known he was up to no good at the time, sheriff.” 

His face set in a grim stamp Walt regarded Mr. Moore seriously, eyes shaded against the sun peeking over the horizon. “Well, that's the thing about bad men. They don't go around thinking they are, it can make it hard to see the snake in the garden.” 

“Suppose you’re right, you’d know wouldn’t you?” 

Mr. Moore smiled. “I don’t mess with snakes much, except the old Mr. Rattler. Have to blow the heads off of those, too dangerous to let ‘em be.”

Walt snorted, turning to get back in his Bronco when Mrs. Moore called out to him from the doorway. Walt was relieved to see she had a cell phone in her hand and not a shotgun.

“Hold on a minute there, sheriff!” she said, hurrying down the driveway. “It’s for you.” 

Walt accepted the phone. “Ruby, I really don’t have time to -'' Walt broke off as Ruby cut him off on the other end of the line. “May-be not breathing?” he said, stressing the syllables. “How the...how does a person not know one way or the other? Alright. Where am I going? Penrose Trail. Out at Buffalo. Okay.”

“Duty calls,” Walt said, snapping the device shut and handing it back to Mr. Moore. “Take care, Mr. Moore, ma’am.”

Walt didn’t appreciate being dragged from his man-hunt but at least he had a clear destination in mind. A place to start looking for these hard-partying tourists that a Good Samaritan had stopped to call in. He switched on the radio, content to listen to the white-nose, as he drove the winding road up to Penrose. All the thinking he'd been doing was just running him in circles; until he could gather more clues on tracking down Holden he needed to put a cork in it. Somewhere in the Buffalo Horn Mountain Range was all well and good, but there was a lot of secluded, unexplored forest land up that way, for all he knew Bigfoot was up in those mountains, too. 

Walt followed the road keeping an eye out for campers but the place was deserted. Empty as the _Red Pony_ was full on Friday nights. He was not particularly surprised. Not many city people wanted to chance getting stuck out here in bad weather and they were having one hell of a winter this year. Walt took the drive nice and slow watching for black-ice and potholes on the road, which allowed him to scan the pathway. Crawling along at a snail's pace Walt spotted signs that indicated someone had gone off-road with their camper, the heavy weight of their haul scrapping the dirt. Not a smart thing to do. That was a good way to get a vehicle stuck, even those fancy off-road trucks dealers were always boasting. Walt followed the crushed undergrowth and snapped tree branches until he found himself staring at a white RV with a green stripe hitched to a beat-up _Dodge Ram._

_Well, damn._

Holden was either one stupid son of a bitch or Walt was one lucky son of a bitch. He didn’t care if it had been the work of the Christian God, Meheo the Creator God, or Tyke the Goddess of luck, he tipped his hat to all Higher Powers for this stroke of luck. He’d done the leg work but it still seemed like some kind of miracle that had landed him at the right place at the right time. Walt took a breath and hefting his .30-30 Winchester approached the RV keeping low to the ground to avoid presenting the two suspects with an easy target. Because he could, because he couldn't _not_ , he asked for one more thing. _Just don’t let me be too late._

Neither suspect fired a shot and Walt rapidly closed the distance. His adrenaline narrowed his focus, he could hear the Meadowlarks chirruping back and forth in the nearby pines, the groaning of trees as they sway in a light morning breeze. 

A whippoorwill, cousin to the nighthawk, landed in a tree not far from where he stands and started sounding off: _Whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will._

Walt winced as his eardrums were assaulted by the birds' unceasing incessence. He heard the steady _thump-thump_ of his heart beating against the cage of his ribs, excited. This was it. Time to open Pandora’s Box.

Walt raised his boot and brought it down with 48 hours of pent up anger. 

The door slammed inward with a loud crash leaving mangled metal in his wake Walt peered into the cramped RV his eyebrow raised in disbelief at the bread trail of heroin. _Well, damned if this doesn’t wrap this up nice and tidy. Maybe a little to tidy?_ Walt frowned taking in the scene. There was an unconscious man no more than a few feet away, the fly of his jeans undone and his hand stuck down his pants. A laptop with a cracked screen was lying on its side at the man's feet. Walt stared down at Holden and found his satisfaction to be a cold and distant thing, it wasn’t Holden he really wanted. Still, this was a good start. 

Walt checked his pulse and when he was satisfied the man wasn’t going to die pulled out standard-issue police cuffs and snapped them in place before he went to investigate the back portion of the RV his shoulders scraping the mustard yellow paneling in the hall. While he’s got no eye for decor he thinks it might just be the ugliest color he’d ever laid eyes on.

Walt turned the corner with his .30-30 raised but this occupant was unconscious, too. Two for two. The Creator was smiling on him today. Unsure of which suspect was in charge Walt rolled the man onto his stomach and handcuffed him to the rod welded into the wall, serving as a strange makeshift bed frame. Walt glanced around the room his nose twitching at the unpleasant mix of sex and stale beer in the room. He looked at the bed, the only clean-looking thing present was the blue sheets, rumpled from daily use. Walt caught a familiar scent, almost overpowered by the muskiness of sex, and froze in place because he’d know it anywhere. Cinnamon and sage. It’s faint but present. It was a scent Walt often associated with Henry. With good reason, at that. Walt remembered the scent -- how could he forget? It had clung to his shirt the last time they had lain together. A shirt he _might have_ left unwashed carefully folded at the top of his drawer. 

Walt’s hands balled into fists at his side but he reigned in the fire racing in his blood, flying off the handle wouldn’t do any good. He stomped back into the front section of the RV to check on Holden but found the suspect was still unconscious. The man cuffed to the bed frame, however, he started groaning and moaning. 

“What the fu-ck, man!” he muttered. He craned his neck to glare at Walt who regarded him with a cool, flat gaze. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m Sheriff Longmire,” Walt said hooking his thumb in his belt as he looked down at his second suspect. He had situated himself in the middle of the tiny, cramped room so that he was all the restrained man could see. He wanted him to feel six inches tall; backed into a corner he couldn’t escape if he didn’t start to talk. 

He _really_ wanted to wring the man's scrawny neck, sake him until he told him what he’d come here to find out, but he didn’t. Walt made sure to read him his rights instead. This asshole wasn’t getting off on a technicality. 

“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you,” Walt said.

The man cursed, loud and violently. “Why the fuck are you arresting me, sheriff? I haven’t done anything.”

They always said that, the innocent and the guilty alike. Walt flicked his eyes around the small room, how confining it felt to him and he’d only been here for a few minutes and tamped down the fire ignited in his belly. This alone would have been hell to Henry who liked the wide-open spaces; the wind in his face and the sun on his skin. He always had. 

“Alright then, if you're so sure you're innocent then you won’t mind answering a few questions, will you?” Walt said. “Now, do you understand your rights as they have been read to you?” 

The man went quiet for a long, tense moment. “C’mon, man!” he grumbled. “Hey, can you at least not have me cuffed face down like a cheap trick?”

His face set in a hard scowl Walt just stared down at the suspect until he stopped bitching. It wore down his patience listening to him whine when he knew deep down in his gut that this place was bad, the kind of bad that left a mark. 

Things had happened here, awful things. 

“No, I can’t do that. That man out there?” Walt said, pointing toward Holden. “He’s my prime suspect in a kidnapping case, right now you’re looking good for an accessory. You want to start by telling me your name and what you're doing out here?”

“Hector Smithson, I would offer to shake your hand but…” the man said, smiling like a man who was used to his good looks giving him a free pass. 

Maybe it had worked in the past but Walt wasn’t falling for that act. That movie-star grin, those blue eyes of his they might have worked their magic before but it wouldn't fly this time. 

“Okay,” Walt said, walking back to his _Bronco._

“Ruby?” Walt said, radioing the station. 

“Walt, what’ve you got?” Ruby asked. 

“Two suspects, Mitch Holden, and Hector Smithson.” Walt paused. “I need you to see what you can dig up on Smithson, I have them cold for drug possession.”

“Done. Walt, honey, did you find Henry?” Ruby asked strain in her voice and the use of an endearment told Walt just how concerned she was. 

Walt didn’t let any of his own concern bleed through. “No. Henry isn’t here. Holden is unconscious and Smithson isn’t ready to talk.”

“Okay. Be safe Walter,” Ruby said and clicked out. Walt set down the radio and re-entered the suspect's vehicle. 

“You can’t arrest me, sheriff. What have I done, hmm?” Hector asked, the tense line of his shoulders and back broadcasting just how uncomfortable he felt being cuffed to the bed frame. 

Walt, who saw no reason to coddle his second real lead to Henry’s current whereabouts, left him exactly as he was, and retook his position at the foot of the bed planting him square in the suspects' view.

“I found drugs on your person and all over your vehicle, Mr. Smithson.”

“Drugs? How the hell --” the man snapped. “It wasn’t me, I swear! It wasn’t Mitch either. A man broke in last night, he knocked me out. I don’t use drugs, shit messes with your head -- you have to believe me!”

Walt shook his head in disbelief. “Are you telling me that a man broke in, incapacitated you and your pal, then he gave you drugs…What like some kind of Drug Santa?”

His mouth gaping as he searched for an explanation Smithson sputtered, wordless, getting more and more worked up. His hand had started rattling the restraints keeping him in place. 

_Had Henry done the same thing?_

Walt swallowed, refocusing his attention. “So tell me, Mr. Smithson, why did this man leave you drugs, hmm? Was it out of the kindness of his heart -- because drug dealers, they're known for that aren’t they? Now, see, why am I finding that hard to believe.`` 

Smithson groaned. “I don’t have a history with drugs, you’ll find that out soon enough. My record is clean as a whistle. I’m being set up.”

Walt _hu-mmed_ playing up the moment as he studied the suspect. “See, now we’re getting somewhere. If you're so innocent why would someone bother setting you up?” 

Smithson shook his head, blond hair shaking as he realized his predicament. “I don’t know, okay? You’re the sheriff -- you tell me.” 

“Your right about one thing, I am the sheriff and I’m looking for someone.” Walt hefted his gun, calm, casual. “Someone important.” 

Smithson looked like he’d bitten into a lemon, his lip curling sharp and cruel. Suddenly Walt remembered where he’d seen the man. It had been late out and there’d been a cigarette on the pavement outside the _Red Pony_ that first time, they’d crossed paths again outside _Milton's_. Shit. He’d been under his nose this whole time. 

The look on the man's face that night when he learned the bar was run by an Indian was the same as the one he wore now. Smithson blinked and the look was gone like a mask painted over his flesh. Walt shivered inside. These kinds always creeped him out and he wasn’t one to be shaken. 

“I don’t do drugs,” Smithson reiterated, calm and quiet but that smile didn’t sit so well on his pretty face anymore now that Walt had gotten a peek at the ugliness underneath. It was as crooked as his spirit. _Christ, Henry's been stuck with this asshole?_

Walt steeled himself, trying to bait Smithson into talking. He knew his game, had his number and everything. He just needed to get him talking. “You know what they say, first time for everything.”

There was that look again; the devil looking out from behind baby-blues. Smithson opened his mouth, the curve of his lips harsh and unmistakably cruel, but quickly shut it. Not so dumb, after all. Too bad. 

“I know Henry Standing Bear was here, in this vehicle, Smithson. I also know if I send these sheets, this pillow, and these shoes sticking out from the bedside that DNA evidence will place Mr. Standing Bear here, with you and Mitch. You feel like talking now?”

Smithson shrugged, tilting his head as he looked up at Walt. “One word, fourteen letters. Cir- _cum_ -stan-tial.” 

Walt remained unmoved but his grip on the .30-30 tightened. “Oh yeah? Well, I can move this along real fast or real slow, that’s up to you. You tell me where I can find Mr. Standing Bear and I’ll even tell the district attorney's you cooperated.”

“Lawyer” Smithson demanded. “I want a lawyer.” 

“And that is your right as a citizen but I am asking you to be a human being and tell me where I can find the man you and your buddy kidnapped from the _Red Pony_.”

Smithson was grinding his teeth, his face reddening, cheeks flush with adrenaline. He was used to getting his way, he needed to be in control and Walt knew that so he kept quiet, intent on waiting the suspect out.

“You aren’t hearing me, lawman, I want a lawyer.”

“I heard you, Mr. Smithson,” Walt said, his words soft and low-toned. Almost gentle. “It is you who is not hearing me. A place like this, isolated, quiet, not a soul for miles….you picked this spot for a reason didn’t you? Didn’t want any interruptions…” Walt nodded to himself, taking a seat, as he spoke calmly laying his .30-30 across his lap; representing the unspoken but visible threat of violence.

“Lawyer.” 

Walt ignored the man’s demand for a lawyer knowing there would be a price to pay later. He decided he could live with it. If he kept needling him Smithson would pop like a pricked balloon. 

This was clearly a man who didn’t like feeling wrong-footed. _Good. Let him squirm a little more. Strip back his power, that’s what really gets him off, the power tripping, staring into his victims eyes as he..._ Walt curtailed from following that thought. It didn’t need finishing. 

“Place like this, Hector, can I call you Hector?” Walt asked conversationally. “The thing about a place like this -- not a soul to hear if someone kicks up a ruckus. A person could scream into the black and no one would ever know, just you and your pal Mitch.” 

“Lawyer. Fuck, you old _and_ deaf, man?”

Walt grinned, shaking his head like he knew something the other man didn't. “You’re not helping yourself much, Mr. Smithson, cursing and yelling. I only want to know about one thing, but I think you know that, don’t you?”

Walt looked him dead in the eyes, nodding to himself. “Yeah, you know -- tell me that and I’ll forget about the heroin. One time deal, you have the next sixty seconds to think it over.”

“I have nothing to say, you’ve got nothing. I haven't done nothing. If you had proof I would be in the back of that piece of shit truck you drive on the way to jail.” 

“That’s alright, I’ve got nothing but time,” Walt said and sat still and silent on the edge of the bed watching as Smithson squirmed, grimacing as he tried and failed to get comfortable. “Damn lumpy mattress,” he muttered. 

Walt looked at the bed, the rumpled blue sheets stretching over a squeaky frame, a heavy scent of sex lingering in the space and felt his hackles rise. How long had his friend been in this same position? His hands bound, laid out face down, and completely vulnerable. How dare this son of a bitch complain about how comfortable he was as though Walt gave a damn. 

For the barest fraction of a second, he tried to put himself in Henry's shoes, think what he thought, feel what he felt, but all it did was make him queasy. Walt almost had to leave the room but he swallowed it down. He couldn’t let this get to him even if it was anathema. The only man Walt had ever been with -- had ever had those thoughts about was Henry. Drawing from an inner wellspring of patience he let the emotions roll over him and shook them off, smiling bitterly. He couldn't afford them right now. _Patience comes to those who wait._ Walt was prepared to wait until the cows came home and the winter snow thawed. Walt didn’t think Smithson could keep his mouth shut that long. 

Walt noticed a flickering red light blinking, the light bouncing off an object and kaleidoscoping over the broken window he was sitting across from in the backroom. He stood up, following the blinking red light. It was the laptop with the cracked screen he’d stepped over on the way in, flashing warning lights, it was running out of battery. 

Walt knelt down, setting it on its proper side. “What the hell,” he muttered pushing the power buttons on the top left corner. The screen was dim but it came up with the Windows Media Player still open. It was a video recording. Walt looked at the innocuous play button and he didn't know why but he was overcome with a feeling of trepidation and it's making his hands tremor, he’s afraid to push it. Chewing on the edge of his lip he pushed play, sitting back on the balls of his feet. The camera executed a wide pan of the back room which was lit up by the hallway light flooding it in hazy halogen yellow. 

_[Smithson walked into the center of the room roughly tugging a handful of hair from the man kneeling on the bed forcing his head up at the camera]_

_Smithson:_ _Look here, Mac. Caught this injun trying to steal our truck._

_Holden:_ _Caught ‘em red-handed did you? Heh. What are you fixing to do?_

_[Smithson looked into the camera his mouth quirked in a Chersire smile]_

_Smithson:_ _I have a few notions. You reckon we can take it out in trade?_

_Holden:_ _I don’t see why the hell not._

_[Holden climbed onto the bed unbuckling his belt pulling it free of his wrangler jeans to throw onto the floor. Holden then grabbed the dark-skinned man with a possessive grasp on his hips as he was stretched out with his hands restrained to the make-shift headboard. His grip was tight as he pulled the other man higher on his knees.]_

_Holden:_ _This is your own fault, shouldn’t have been caught messin’ with our shit._

_Smithson:_ _Ride ‘em, cowboy!_

_[Holden grunted bracing himself with his hand clutching the bedframe, with his other hand he pulled the dark-skinned man back into his thrusts. The bed squeaked wildly under the rocking weight. The man on the bed was silent. In the background Smithson laughed.]_

Walt didn’t know what happened next because he stopped the video; he could barely see past the miasma of red clouding his vision but he would never forget it; the ugly sounds and the empty, hollowed-out darkness in his best friend's eyes. Smithson's psychopathic laughter lingered, seeming to echo in the close quarters making the hairs on the back of Walt's neck stand on end. The way he’d treated Henry...was as if he wasn’t even a human being.

Walt sat back on the balls of his feet, his face a mask of perfect calm. Inside he was seething, hot fury settling over his shoulders like a cozy, well-worn coat. More than ever he felt the weight of responsibility that came with the tin-star badge he wore on his chest; everything in him was screaming for blood. He wanted to take out his .30-30 and blow a hole in Holden and Smithson. He keeps himself in check, reminding himself he still didn’t know what it is they’ve done with Henry. If he’s even alive. It was looking pretty grim, to be honest, and Walt wasn’t sure if it might have been better, kinder if Smithson had just put a bullet in him. He’d been with the man for twenty minutes and he felt like he’d been handling a rattler. 

Walt stared down at the laptop. Such an innocuous thing, harmless really, but it's hard drive contained the acts of brutal crimes. He wasn’t dumb, hell, if there was one video there would definitely be more. More than one rape case had concluded in conviction because the rapist had been stupid enough to film it and then keep evidence of his crime. Walt didn’t delude himself on this point. Henry had been missing for going on three weeks; there were definitely more videos on this device. Here was proof of a crime; every prosecutor's dream. But it was also what nightmares were made of for people who kept their lives private for a reason. This could ruin Henry's reputation if it ever got out. He wasn't so naïve that he didn’t see that, either. Walt stared down at the device and wished he’d never laid eyes on it -- there was a difference between knowing a rape had been committed and having watched a few seconds of recording as it happened. _Still, can’t leave it lying around to be found when Vic and Ferg sweep the place._

Walt picked up the device and stowed it in the cab of his Bronco. When he got back to the RV Smithson had gone silent in the backroom. Walt counted back from twenty and when he was sure he wasn’t going to murder his restrained and unarmed suspect he went in. 

“So, I guess you’ve figured it out, huh?” Smithson said and when he smiled Walt wanted to break his nose. Smithson was a viper wearing human skin but the game was up. He dropped the pretense staring at Walt from a blank face. “Still, fucking ain’t murder.”

Walt glowered, a tall mass looming over Smithson who had to crane his neck awkwardly to see him. “No, but a man could do fifteen years of hard time for rape.”

“I tell you what else, man. There was no way Mitch and I were his _first_ ,” Smithson chuckled, the words flowing like he’d been biting them back the whole while. “He could take it like a pro, your boy.” 

“Shut up,” Walt said, quaking in fury. _Shut up, shut up, shut up!_ He needed the man to stop talking or he was going to… _No, keep it together. He’s still missing. Keep it together._ Walt counted the numbers in his head but it didn’t work, all it did was remind him of the man who’d taught him to do that a lifetime ago beneath a very blue sky. 

Smithson threw his head back, cackling. “Hmm, I heard that you two are old friends -- maybe it's _you_ who got the pleasure of his virginity?” 

“Don’t you talk about ‘em like that!” Walt said surging forward, he stopped at two paces harshly reining himself in. One more and he’d be close enough to grab the man by the neck. _To close. Back up._ Walt inhaled and retreated. _Let him talk and talk and talk, he’s talking to a sheriff this can be used against him later._ It was a rational plan but Walt didn’t know if he could keep himself in control. He’d thrown the first punch for lesser insults to Henry. 

Smithson grinned, the winsome look incongruous with the bile he was spewing. “I bet you were his first, sheriff. I’ll tell you this, I had to work real hard to make ‘em crack -- wasn’t much of a crier, your boy. Nope. he made me work for it real good.” 

_Fuck._ Walt could feel a wave of deep, bottomless anger surging from the pit of his stomach. His hand shook with the restraint it required to not throttle the suspect. He wanted to do things the Lucien way and take Smithson outback but he couldn't. Walt knew he couldn't -- the state of him now he’d deliver more than a beating. He’d kill the son of a bitch if he hit him when he was running hot like this. 

“Come on, hit me? I deserve, I do, don’t I?” Smithson and smacked his own head against the metal frame. “No? That’s okay -- I’ll do this one. You do the next, I smell a lawsuit in your future, sheriff.”

Walt tensed up, his mouth falling open as his suspect continued to injure himself. Shit, shit, shit. This was exactly the kind of crazy that let murderers walk free. 

“Alright, that’s enough,” Walt said, grabbing the man's neck.

“Assault!” Smithson crowed, “come on, that’s funny becau -” 

Walt’s grip tightened, thumbs digging, strong, unbending. “Enough.” 

“Ooh, does the sheriff have a temper? I think he does -- look at you, you’re positively shaking! All this over a piece of ass? I mean, yeah he’s good, but really?”

Walt lunged with a wordless snarl, his hands bunching handfuls of the restrained man's shirt as he yanked him forward as he half knelt on the bed, towering the expanse of his shoulders blocking the ceiling. Smithson chuckled, his head rolling back on his shoulders as he laughed in the sheriff's face. 

“That’s assault, sheriff. Sure you wanna be doing that?”

Walt grit his teeth and stiffly let him go, backing up before he did something worse. Smithson whistled. “Just one problem about all this, sheriff. Where’s this proof?” Smithson shook his head, chuffing into his elbow. 

“Hell sheriff, where’s my accuser?” Smithson asked. He gave Walt a knowing look that made his skin crawl. He wanted a shower, no, he wanted ten just from being in the same room as this man. He was toxic. 

“This friend, he’s an Indian and he runs a bar. When this comes out people are going to start wondering if maybe he was asking for it. Henry is at least a little bi, am I right?” Smithson continued talking, blithe, and easy. 

Walt wanted to slap that smugness right off his face. He had no right talking like this, saying Henry’s name like that, as if he owned it. 

“It doesn't matter, not really,” Smithson said, licking his lips as his eyes shone with malice. “The things I could say on the stand, I could say all kinds of shit.” 

Walt stared down at the other man, his eyes hard as flint waiting for a fire-spark. 

“I’ve been Henry’s friend for 37 years, I bet you didn’t know that, and I am the sheriff of this county. I know people and people know me. When I get on that stand and say you’re full of shit people will listen and you know why, Smithson? Because you’re a nobody and they _will_ see that. It won’t matter what you say. It’s an imperfect world full of imperfect people, I know that. But it won't be as bad as you’re making out, either. Come on, you aren’t saying anything useful, might as well take you to jail.” 

Walt leaned down, unlocking the left cuff when Smithson lashed out with a wild swing. Walt pulled back, looking down at the blood dotting his hand, and smiled. 

“Alright,” Walt said.

Smithson grabbed at Walt who ducked and landed a powerful uppercut that snapped his head back causing him to lose his balance. Walt didn’t leave him time to recover, slamming his closed fist into Smithson’s ribs, he heard a distinct -- _satisfying_ \-- crack as something broke inside. 

Smithson fell backward onto the bed. It squeaked and his body jolted at the impact while Smithson clutched his nose, blood gushing from between his cupped hands. The silver police cuff dangled from his wrist.

“You broke my nose!” Smithson howled, red-faced and blood splattered, it was dripping onto the collar of his shirt. “Fuck, I’ll tell everyone you fucker. Everything -- how he liked, how he took dick so many times he bled like a bitch. He was a pillow-biter, yeah? Fucking damn Indian trash, I fucked him, so did Mitch, bo-hoo. No one cares.”

A few words stood out like blinking neon lights amidst all the venom Smithson was spitting. _Was, he’d said? Why’d he say it like that?_ Walt froze, all his anger evaporating as a new kind of emotion filled him up. Cold dread dragged it’s nails up his spine and raised all the hair on his skin. _He said ‘was’, why? No, no no!_ Walt turned to Smithson who was still mouthing off and shook him hard enough that his head bounced off the wall.

Walt ignored his cursing and useless clawing. Only one thing mattered to Walt right now, he didn’t feel it where nails dug into his arms, trailing tiny pinpricks of red. “ _Was,_ ” Walt said. “Why did you say it like that?” he demanded, taking Smithson by the shirt front and dragging him out of the camper to throw him to the ground, staining it red.

Smithson trembled with rage, spitting blood on the ground, he leaned back on his knees, his eyes becoming opaque like glass marbles. “Fuck,” he muttered pursing his lips tight. 

_He said more than he planned,_ Walt realized. There it was, the cold truth he’d preferred to have left buried. He was too late this time. 

“Fucking still isn’t murder. I had nothing to do with that.” Smithson was backpedaling, covering his ass. “That was all Mitch’s idea, man.” 

Walt locked his knees, fighting vertigo that was trying to knock him to his knees, his ears started ringing so bad he couldn’t hear anything. Not the Meadowlarks chirping, the herons down by the lake, or the damn whippoorwill’s noisy trilling. _Henry was dead._ Smithson had nothing to gain by lying and everything to lose for shooting his mouth off about murder.

He felt a coldness sweep through him -- the kind that never left just stayed with a man like an eternal winter of his own making. Everything slowed down, or maybe it was moving so fast he didn’t see, his focus became the _thump-thump_ of his heart. He swore it felt slower than before like it too wanted to give up the ghost right here in the middle of nowhere, _thump-thump_ it kept on ticking. _Henry was dead._

Nothing would ever be right again. Walt hefted his .30-30 with numb fingers. “Hold out your hands.” Smithson did as he was told looking down the barrel of a shotgun. Walt lowered his weapon to snap the second police cuff around Smithson’s right wrist. 

“Get in the truck.” Walt pulled the lever. “You go on, son, try it, test me!” he growled, “Give me one good reason and I will shoot you.” 

Smithson was no fool, for all that he was a monster wearing human flesh, his crooked smile hiding the malice behind his baby-blues. Walt considered doing what Old Mr. Moore did when he crossed Mr. Rattler. All this man was good for was a bullet. Walt could see Smithson giving in, hands up in unmistakable surrender. Yeah, Smithson wasn’t a fool but Walt sure wished he was.

One good reason, one shaky reason, would have been enough and they both knew it.

Smithson could see the change that had come over him, the dark shadow of grief that bowed his shoulders, and he didn’t say a word knowing he’d already said too much. One more word and badge or no badge he would have shot him and Smithson knew it. If this really were the Old West the sheriff would be looking for a Hanging Tree. 

Walt stood outside the cab, looking at the RV and the blue, blue sky above. He had his suspects cold for possessions but his best friend was dead. It wasn’t a fair trade. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’d said the damned phrase so often. Sometimes serious, sometimes mocking, mouth always turned up at the corner. _‘It is what it is.’_
> 
> _So it is, so it is._ Walt decided laughing under his breath. Henry had finally won the argument. All it took was one of them dying. Winner by default.

_Penrose Trail:_

  
  
  


_He’s gone, he’s gone,_ that was all Walt could think. At that moment with his head tilted back to stare into the endless blue sky; it was a reverse mantra Walt couldn’t shake. The words, so fucking simple, so small, carved into his flesh. He leaned against the side of his truck sucking in a sharp lungful of breath. “He’s ---” the words died in the back of his throat as he issued a guttural wheeze of misery. Walt couldn’t speak them aloud. Henry was dead. Grief paralyzed his body into stillness. He was accustomed to death; it’s what kept him in a job, but he wasn’t prepared for this death. He couldn’t even say it was coming at him from left field. Walt should have been prepared. But how, how the hell was he supposed to do that, accept it, when it was all so fucking pointless. Henry was dead and why? Because of one man’s obsession and another man’s inability to feel remorse. How, how the hell was he supposed to prepare for that? He’d been stupid to think he could have. Cutting off his hand would have been easier. Grief tried to knock the knees out from under him. He should know better. A person didn’t prepare for death like some fucking bake-sale, a person ponied-up and dealt with it while it ran them over in the street leaving a body broken in a way it hadn’t known were possible. 

There was a weight on his shoulders and a gnawing, aching, grief that bowed his limbs. He was _Atlas_ under the falling sky. If he took a single forward step, he’d fall to his knees crushed beneath an inward conflagration. Swallowing hot tar would have hurt less than this knowledge Walt carried with him now. This desolate, frozen piece of forgotten land had been witness to Henry's last breath. A life snuffed out like it was nothing, as if he had been _nothing_. And just like that Henry was taken away; his best friend, the first greatest love of his fucking life. 

He could feel it. Deep down in his bones, the loss a physical blow as grief raked him over the coals with silent recriminations. 

_Why wasn’t he here sooner?_

Better to ask why some people died peaceably and others bloody, there was no cosmic answer. If there was, Walt wasn’t privy to the answer. It was just life. _‘You win some and you lose some in this game, junior, best you learn that now,’_ Lucien had said to him on a day, not unlike this one. The sky had been blue and ring-necked doves had been cooing in the trees as people went about their lives while he and the old sheriff stood over a pregnant murder victim. Triple homicide-suicide. There had been nothing to do but notify the family. It had been his second day on the job. He’d been too late then, and he was too late now. Except this time there was no Lucien at his back to clap him on the shoulder as they recognized the gravity of the moment. He was alone out here aside from the two suspects waiting in his truck. Vic and Ferg were still following leads in town because they didn’t know Henry was dead. 

Walt should tell them, he knew that, and he would, but not yet. He didn’t want to hear those words spoken out loud yet. Him knowing, feeling it as they dug into the marrow of his bones, was enough for now. 

Bracing his hands over the hood of his vehicle Walt took a moment for himself. To breathe until the storm of emotions rattling his insides settled into something that didn’t have him shaking with fury and his blood cold as winter’s first snow.

Silence, so thick it had a weight and texture all its own fell over the clearing. It was only his perception which had been shaken, it was only for him that the world had become a little darker, a little colder place to inhabit. He knew that, of course, but it didn’t make it any easier to swallow. Birds were still merrymaking in towering trees. Red-breasted robins, and small brown sparrows were dancing through the air; able to do what men only dreamed of as they glided on wind currents. They flew so high they became specks dancing in the far off distance. So small and fragile they could break in the clenching of a man’s fist.

Still, they survived, doing what _Icarus_ couldn't, flying into the sun with wings of hollow bones and flesh instead of wax. Martha had loved watching those tiny birds, Walt had seen her sit at the porch for hours, just watching. Henry had hung a small feeder from the porch roofing. He’d done it all quiet like so that one day it was there, like it always had been, and suddenly those birds Martha loved looking at were that much closer. 

Nothing was ever said about who’d done it but the next evening Martha gave Henry a home-baked apple pie among other, naughtier things in gratitude when the lights grew dim and it was just them, together in the dark. They’d had themselves some fun, back then. Love had come easy in those days before the cancer; after that it had gotten harder.

Walt clenched and unclenched his fist, thumping the flat of his hand against metal and kicked the ties, railing against an unfair world. Gone, both of them, fucking gone. But here he was, still trying to make the world better. Because it was his duty; this was still a world his daughter had to live in. It wasn’t right. He was still here and they were just fucking _gone_. 

In the thickets young bucks had shed their first velveteen where chasing brown-eyed does around mulberry bushes and the sun was still shining. So fiercely bright and golden that the white powdered snow crunching beneath Walt’s boots was thawing. When the snows fully melted, the world would still be intact underneath but there were scars here that ran deep marking it in other ways now. Walt could feel them being carved into his bones. A dull ache left to fester in the wake of his anger. It felt like the worst kind of betrayal that the day was still beautiful, while to him a curtain of permanent, twilight gray had fallen.

He was looking at the world through a film, and he hated what he saw. Gray, everything was dull and gray, even the red from the robins were stripped of color. _Buck up, junior_. Lucien would have said if were present, but he wouldn't have said it was okay, either. The old man wasn’t in the habit of telling lies. 

After steadying himself against the cab, Walt returned to the RV and dragged Holden from the trailer. The man was still out cold on a cocktail of drugs and drink, and remained unconscious as Walt put him in the back of the Bronco next to Smithson who hadn’t spoken a word since his prior explosion. He’d said enough to nail his own coffin and they both knew it. Walt went around to the cab and stood there, the door open, his weight pressed against the cold metal frame. If this suspect went down, he’d take the good memory of Henry, the best man Walt had known, and ruin it.

There was a meanness behind that handsome face. It wanted to see everything good and decent crash and burn around him in a blaze of self grandiose, supremely fucked-up, glory. Smithson would run off his mouth to everyone and anyone that’d listen what he’d done to Walt’s best friend. The only thing that could keep his mouth shut was a bullet. 

Walt bowed his head low, his face cast in deep shadows as he accepted this as something that could not be changed. He would have killed Smithson for a lot of reasons, excellent ones like _'you killed my best friend, asshole'_ , to begin with. But it couldn’t be over words no matter how badly it cut him up leaving it like this he had to. Still, if it had been Lucien wearing the badge and Walt had been the one in that damned RV he knew what the old sheriff would have done. Right or wrong there’d have been another body buried in the woods today. Walt was man enough to accept that it was what he wanted to do even as he resisted the temptation of a quick end to this whole ugly situation. The world didn't need more animals -- more monsters -- it needed good men. That’s what spared Smithson the bullet he’d earned himself. Walt had spent the better half of his life trying to live up to that epitaph, a good man. 

Why then did it sometimes feel like being good meant sitting on his ass doing nothing?

Walt got in the cab staring at the police radio for a long spell, he knew he should check in with his deputies but he didn't. Instead, he started the ignition pulled back onto the trail road that led back to town. He didn’t touch the radio, letting the horrible silence roll over him, he couldn’t speak. It was fitting. All the unspoken words he wanted to speak, someday, were dying on the tip of his tongue. Bit by bit, inch by inch, so was he. He wasn’t the Walt who had stepped into this clearing to check on passed-out tourists. He wasn't even the man who by dumb luck stumbled across two kidnapping suspects. No, not even that. He was the man who found out his best friend was dead; raped for three weeks and then murdered. All while he, the sheriff, chased robbers and petty thieves with his head stuck up his ass. 

Walt drove away from the site leaving behind a piece of himself in that quiet, isolated section of land. There was no walking away from news like this and still being whole. Like a rubber band stretched too thin he could feel pieces coming undone, a physical ache that had him rubbing his chest. He wasn’t the same man who had driven into _Penrose_ just hours ago. He stared resolutely out the windshield as the first tear rolled down the side of his face. One became two and three but he didn’t care enough to stop or to wipe them away. He didn’t care if Smithson were to see him crying.

It became harder to feel anything outside of the bleak numbness settling over his chest. It was foolish of him, maybe, but he’d always been so certain that of the two of them and their chosen vocations, barkeep and sheriff, he was the one who would die first. He was prepared for that. Glad for it even because this was not something he had prepared for. A world where he existed and Henry just didn’t. 

The sun was hitting the mountain tops, bathing everything in a soft glow of a new day beginning but Walt still couldn’t see that. His inward self was struggling, stuck back at _Penrose_ , in that miserable, tiny RV. He was crying, he could feel the hot saline spilling down his face in a river but he didn't care. It had come on quick. A flash-flood he was too damn tired to push off. It even felt a little better, like someone was unscrewing the tension valve that was cinched around his heart. When the tears ran dry all he had was an empty ache alcohol won't solve, but knew he’d try soon as he could take this damn badge off and let someone else be in charge of the town for a day or two. Maybe a month. Shit. Maybe more. 

_Why, why’d it have to be him?_ That's the question Walt kept circling back to picking at it like a scab he refused to let heal. It would keep him up on long, sleepless nights that were just lying in wait for him, later, when all his self-recriminations would manifest in little devils to plague his sleep. He didn’t understand why people had to behave like monsters preying on anyone caught up in their snares. He understood the psychology of kidnapping, control and sexual gratification, financial ransom, parental rights, and human trafficking. Those were the key causes. Smithson had wanted to completely dominate another human being. Holden’s fixation with dark-eyed, Cheyenne men was why they had chosen Henry.

Maybe the young man became fixated over a moment that was nothing more than a single look across the barroom. From that was born three weeks of terror that ended with murder. Maybe it was always meant to end in this way, that seemed like something Henry would say. Still, of all the people in Absaroka they had chosen Henry. 

Walt squinted his eyes against the rising sun glaring him in the face. His teeth audibly grind as he resisted the urge to pull over. He wanted to shake the asshole in the backseat until he said what Walt wanted to hear. Fuck, even he didn’t know the answer to that how could the man in the backseat? What was it he wanted him to say, if he said anything at all. _Why did it have to be him?_ If Walt had one question, that was it. It wasn’t fair of him placing so much value on one man above the rest of the people in the county. Walt was human, though, and his chest was aching with grief that was demanding answers he didn’t have. Fair, unfair, the heart didn’t care. Walt didn’t care, wishing the victim had been anyone but Henry. What kind of man _\-- lover --_ would it make him if he didn’t at least consider it? Walt would never get a reasonable answer from Smithson so he kept this mouth shut. He didn’t play into Smithson’s narcissistic ego. 

The man in the backseat was the worst kind of man, a chameleon, a snake wearing human skin. He wore his scales all crooked now and Walt could see behind the mask. He was rotten to the core. There would be no rational answers from a man who enjoyed hurting others because it was the only high he could feel. 

Walt grimaced, keeping his eyes on the road. He didn’t glance back through the rearview mirror and look at Smithson and his smug face. He didn’t dare. Afraid he’d do things sheriffs ought not do. Bad things that might change how Martha thought of him on the other side. Whatever or _whenever_ that turned out to be. Things that Henry wouldn’t have wanted him doing in his name. Life was funny. He tried so hard to avoid this moment and here it was, and there they were. Both gone on without him and it was just Walt, alone with too many regrets. His tears were all dried up and done with for the time being leaving him bereft; numb and empty as a hollow drum. 

_Sometimes shit happens,’_ that’s what he figured Omar would have said right about now. Hell, that wasn’t even too far removed from Henry and his, _‘it is what it is, Walt.’_ As if they haven’t been arguing the causality of that for half their lives.

They would never get to finish an argument that spanned a lifetime. Threads of a conversation picked up at empty bars, back offices, and dark dim-lit bedrooms. No more winning with a kiss to shut Henry up when Walt was too tired to argue anymore. No more late evenings spent on Walt’s porch drinking in a silence that could last all night. All that, just gone. What he wouldn't give to have all that back but he was three weeks too late. _I was too late._

“He’s dead,” Walt muttered, his hands tight on the wheel as the words settle in the air. There. He’d said it and he wanted to unsay it just as soon as the words left his mouth but he couldn’t. Words once spoken couldn’t be unspoken. Too late, always too late, to slow to figure things out when it wasn’t a case to solve. It was a bad habit of his, saying too much to some, and not enough to others. In all his years he’d never gotten it quite right. Henry had deserved better from him. He’d sure as hell deserved a proper conversation. 

Walt had spent half a night fucking him into the mattress chasing desire he saw reflected in Henry’s dark eyes. It had been the first time since Martha’s death but Walt left long before morning slipping out before sunrise. It wasn’t unusual, or strange behavior but Henry had kept his distance since that night. Walt hadn’t known how to break the silence after running off like a suspect from a crime scene. The worst of it was Henry letting him. He wasn’t sure if that made him angrier or just plain sad. 

Maybe he’d really understood, maybe not, there was just no way of knowing for certain. Henry had let him off the hook. Let him keep his thoughts private, secreted away as he turned inward, and now the son of a bitch was dead. The only person Walt could blame was himself and he did. He blamed himself because he could see it now. He’d been afraid, that was it; after all the wallowing he’d done the prospect of being happy was terrifying. 

Happiness was something that could be so easily lost again. Walt had let it slip out of his hands instead of taking what he could. Time wasted, so much fucking time wasted, in a stalemate that could have broken with a few small, simple words. _‘I’m sorry’,_ he could have tried, for starters. Or, _‘I need you,’_ which would have been the truth. _‘I want this, too,’_ and let his body speak the rest of what he couldn't say, any of that, all that could have worked. If he’d manned up enough to try. It was enough to break him clean in two, knowing that he hadn’t. 

Walt’s shoulders tightened, the muscles in his neck straining as he felt his heart palpitate, sharp and painful. The truth hurt sometimes and all the wanting and wishing in the world couldn't bring back the dead. Too late for any of that now, the assholes in the backseat made sure of it. He realized that he hadn't asked how it happened, where to find the body. He would not ask right now either. He was not that good of a man. He knew his limits and this would irrevocably cross the boundary lines. He’d have Vic do the questioning when they got back to the station. Walt knew himself and his base instincts too well. If he stopped, pulled over on the side of the road out here on an empty road and asked Smithson how Mitch had done it, killing Henry, he wouldn’t keep his hands clean.

As it stood his blood was up. Every instinct in him, every atom in his body screamed at him to put Smithson down like the rabid dog he’d proven he was. Hell, a rabid dog had an excuse where the man in his backseat was born broken. Or somewhere along the way the world had done the breaking, and the man had never put the pieces back right. 

Walt kept both hands on the wheel because the gold tin-star pinned to his chest meant something to him. Henry wouldn’t blame him for not doing it, not becoming a killer. Hell of it was, Henry would probably be angry with him if he used his death as an excuse. Damned if that didn’t take the wind right out of his sails. Walt would keep his spirit clean of this blood. He’d live a good life and someday he’d find Henry in whatever came next. And Martha. It was all the consolation left to Walt, and he wasn’t giving it up for this bastard in the backseat. _Henry would understand._ Walt clung to that belief, his hands white-knuckling the steering wheel. His hand itched for his .30-30 Winchester but he didn’t dare let go of the wheel. He had a job to do. After. Then he could hole up in his cabin and drink until he forgot if he damn well pleased. Drown his grief in an alcoholic river of Lethe.

It was his right and there was only one person left on God’s green earth he cared about enough to make him stop. 

Walt pressed down on the gas wanting to get back to the station and the assholes out of his vehicle. They smelled like alcohol and sex, it was upsetting the order of his thoughts having them here. So close, too close when he still wanted to kill them both even if he had decided he wouldn’t. Especially because of that, he needed them gone. He had the air cranked up high, but it did nothing to dilute the musky scent that clung to the men's clothes. Maybe it was all in his head but he could have sworn he caught a hint of cinnamon. Swallowing past a throat gone tight he rummaged with his free hand in the glove department. Maybe Cady had stuck one of those air-fresheners in there again. The compartment popped open papers spilling onto the floor. There at the top he could see the small yellow scrap of paper he’d been carrying around since Amy White Feather showed it to him. 

It was the last note Henry had ever written.

“Dammit!” Walt snarled. No use trying to look for those tiny little cardboard cutouts now. Not unless he wanted to chance going off the road to find out if he was losing his mind. 

Smithson inhaled. A sudden gasping sound as they took a turn a little too fast making the vehicle skid to the left. Walt ignored him, satisfied to see the man was fully cognizant of his predicament.

His life was in Walt’s hands until they got to the station where he’d throw the entire damn book at the pair of them. He had Smithson and Holden cold for possession. Best defense attorney in the county would have trouble getting that knocked out when their vehicle and their person’s had been peppered in white heroin. Half the sell for a guilty verdict with a jury was the visual evidence the state could provide. Things they could see as tangible proof of guilt. Good thing he’d snapped a photo of both men before confronting them. Smithson didn’t know that part yet.

Walt could use that against Smithson in the proper place and time. Namely one of his choosing. 

Walt knew which buttons to press to make him pop. 

He’d have Bloomberg run a tox screen on their blood, too, to seal the deal nice and airtight. He’d nail Holden with the footage of him attacking Henry outside the _Red Pony_ collected from _Milton’s General Store_. It served as proof of coercion and kidnapping and firmly placed Holden at the scene of the crime. The laptop would prove sexual assault. Pair that with the verbal confession Walt had nettled from Smithson and he could begin building his case. Which left the murder charge; he needed more than hearsay to make that charge stick. He’d put the screw to them back at the station until they sang like yellow canaries. 

Henry would not be another body left to rot in a shallow, unmarked grave. Walt would see to it he was taken care of properly, in the way of his people, if it was the last thing he did. 

Walt heard his suspect shuffling around in the backseat and checked on him with the dash mirror. He was taking the turns a little too fast. He knew it from the way his truck was moving on those turns, but it was worth it to see that look on Smithson’s face. Gone was his bland, smug arrogance from before as he watched the scenery zipping past. He was afraid, his pupils dilated, and his breathing erratic. 

Walt didn’t smile, he wasn’t happy, but it felt good to make Smithson wriggle like a fish on a hook. Smithson was handcuffed, helpless, and for a man who so desperately craved control that was anathema.

Smithson, licked his lips, nervous before speaking. “Dude, take it easy on those turns, yeah?” 

Walt smiled then, knowing what it cost for the suspect to ask. He wanted to press harder on the gas to see that fear turn to full-blown panic but he didn’t. Smithson was tensing up, his mouth pressed into a thin line of anger. “What, you gonna drive us over a cliff?” he demanded, his sharp eyes cutting upwards. 

Walt flicked the other man a single, brief glance through the mirror. It was enough to let Smithson see everything he was thinking plain on his face. “ _Du-de_ , shut up.” 

“Listen,” Smithson began, hesitant in a way he hadn't been, not even when Walt had broken his nose. “You don’t want reckless endangerment on your record do you? That kind of shit ruins careers.”

“Why, are you afraid?”

“I don’t have a death wish.”

Walt snorted, bitter with the irony but slowed down. He’d had his fun and black ice patches could send his truck off the road in weather like this. “Don't worry, Mr. Smithson. I’m taking you to jail where you will spend the rest of your life behind bars.”

“Sure, okay, whatever you say, old man.”

“First thing we'll do when we get back is call the doc. Have him take a blood sample before that junk it washes out of your system,” Walt said. 

Smithson grunted but kept quiet. 

Walt found it interesting that he wasn’t continuing with his Drug Santa narrative but he wasn’t all together surprised. 

Murder charges threw a hell of a longer shadow than drug possession.

“Then we’ll see what he thinks about that nose of yours.”

Smithson snorted when Walt brought up the state of his nose, his eyes narrowed to slits. “Oh fuck you, man, it’s broken and you know it!”

“You struck an officer, Mr. Smithson. That’s one count of aggravated assault under Wyoming state law. Just a misdemeanor, perhaps, but it’s a place to be starting.”

“It won't stick, lawman.”

“Won’t it?” Walt asked. “Justin Hayes was sentenced to 104 days of imprisonment on one account of assaulting, resisting, opposing, and otherwise interfering with a federal officer.” 

Smithson was bouncing his knee, anxious. “You know what he did, Mr. Smithson? He blew blood into the face of a _Bureau of Indian Affairs_ , Wind River Police Department Officer while he was trying to get Hayes into a jail cell. I know what you think of Indians, Mr. Smithson, but Hayes did time for something lesser than what you're up against and I, unlike the _Bureau of Indian Affairs_ officer am white. Right or wrong I will use that to make sure you get what you deserve.”

Smithson shrugged. “Whatever. I still want to see a doctor for my nose. It’s all busted up -- that’s police brutality, the media eats that shit up like dessert,” he said, his teeth bared in a feral smile as he showed off his self-inflicted wounds. “You sure did a number on my head, Sheriff Longmire and I’ll make sure everybody knows it, too.”

“Sure, sure, I’ll see to it the doc fixes that nose,” Walt agreed, smooth and easy as pie. His mouth curved in a hard, merciless grin. “You will have the prettiest nose in prison, bet that’ll make you _real_ popular.”

“What are you insinuating, old man?”

Walt didn’t take his eyes off the road but there were hard lines driven into his face. Deep darkness was welling up in him. He wanted Smithson to get a taste of the horror he’d put Henry through for three weeks. He wanted Smithson to carry that same fear and let it scratch at the back of his head like a rat in a maze.

The hand of justice could be slow in delivering, Walt made sure he had something to chew on while they waited. “Don’t worry, with baby-blues like yours? I’m sure you can get anything you want, even where you're going, for a _price_.”

“Christ!” Smithson muttered, a puzzled look on his face like he couldn’t understand why Walt was saying these things to him. Walt didn’t think he could understand, given the nature of what he was. “It's got you all tangled up inside, doesn't it, what I did to that Cheyenne?” 

“His name was _Henry Standing Bear_ , Mr. Smithson, and I will make sure you pay for the crimes you committed against him.”

“Every. Last. One.” 

Smithson said nothing else and the conversation was over as suddenly as it had begun. He didn’t look like a worried man. Walt returned to ignoring Smithson, looking at him made him sick, and talking to him made it worse. 

As they got nearer to town, it crossed his mind that he still didn’t know what to tell Cady. No matter how he came at it there didn’t look to be any way of keeping the true ugliness of this situation from her. Murder. It left a unique kind of scar. Worse than those caused by other kinds of deaths. Walt didn’t want his daughter to have to deal with this particular brand of pain but there was little he could do to stop it. 

It was uglier somehow. Knowing that someone you cared about had died for no other reason than that sometimes the world was shit. It was always harder to deal with a life cut short, an unnatural end. It wasn’t fair to go making this all about him, either. Not when his daughter had lost her mother and now Henry. Nothing about this situation was fair. Cady would hear about it, either way, better it came from him than local gossip. He couldn’t realistically keep this from her. Not with Smithson liable to brag about the sexual assault he’d already copped to as soon as he had a captive audience.

He would wring the limelight for as long as he could, Walt knew the type. It was possible Smithson had done the killing and not Holden. The other man fit the killer profile better than Holden but there was no way of knowing who was guilty of what crime yet. Soon as he got this wrapped up he’d have Ruby call Cady, have her meet him at the _Busy Bee_ on the pretext of dinner. As a sheriff it was his duty to bring the suspects in alive, but as a friend, as a father, he wished he’d taken the easy road. He could have waited until they woke up, let them try to get a shot off. 

Too late now, in for a penny. In for a pound. 

Walt drove. Thoughts turned over and over in his head as he tried to figure out how much of this he could justify keeping quiet. What would have to be made public knowledge. The idea of nosy busybodies and media hounds speculating about what had gone on out there at _Penrose_ made him sick. And they would too, without a question. That’s what happened in small counties. Tongues wagged and those who couldn’t speak up louder than the gossip were drowned out in the noise. The thing about this sort of gossip was the dead couldn’t talk.

_'Did you hear about what happened at Penrose Trail?’_ people would comment over the table sharing private, knowing looks. Behaving as though they had the right to speculate and hunt out gossip about the newly dead from the safety of their kitchen tables. It would become an idle conversation topic to some; what happened out there in the dark. Until interest died down and they let Henry’s ghost rest in peace. _Penrose Trail_ wasn’t how Cady should remember Henry. It shouldn't be allowed to eclipse the sum total of a man who had done so much for his community and those he considered close friends. His defining moment, the things everyone would remember becoming how and why he was killed. Or maybe not, no one remembered the victims in cases like this, maybe that could be a blessing in disguise. 

Everyone knew the _Zodiac Killer_ and _Son of Sam_ but if someone asked them to name a victim, they’d have no answers. It was for the best. 

Better that they forget then pick like vultures over the caricature the media would make of Henry’s corpse if it got in its claws. _‘Native American Butchered: Casualty of White Privilege’_ , they’d say. To spin their story they’d leave out the git, the sodomy, and shine the light on the torture and the suspects pretty faces to scare the public. _‘If the boy-next-door can be a killer, anyone can,’_ would be the central theme with a few throwaways toward the high ratio of crimes committed against Native American’s. If they broadcasted that the victim was bisexual or that the focus of the crime was predominantly sexual assault on a man people would care less and their news wouldn’t sell. Most newspapers weren’t about real-people news anymore, it was all about who was making the biggest splash. 

_Rape doesn’t happen to men, didn’t you know?_ Walt sighed. Maybe he was being too cynical and it wouldn’t be as bad as he feared. But either way it hashed out, Hector Smithson and Mitchell Alexander Holden would go down in infamy.

Because they had killed a good man these killers were going to get their 60 seconds of fame in the limelight. He could keep it under wraps for a while but it wouldn't last forever. Once the news hit the streets the station would be swamped with journalists and local news people. Every single one was going to be looking for a story to make their by-line; there wasn’t a damn thing Walt could do to stop it.

He jolted from his thoughts when a yellow _Honda_ cut in front of him. It zipped through main street aggressively cutting through the lanes like a Soccer Mom who was late for practice. As the vehicle passed them at the light he caught sight of a boy with his face pressed against the backseat window. He was sticking his tongue out. Walt snorted, some things never changed. Everyone was always in such a hurry and little boys wanted to see how much they could get away with when their parents weren’t looking. The whole world seemed to be in a rush to reach that finish line. Except for Walt; he was in no great hurry. He was content with this terrible moment stretching out into infinity. So long as he remained in this bubble of silence removed from the rest of the world he wouldn’t have to speak. Words had a way of making a thing real and he wasn’t ready for that but the choice was soon to be taken out of his hands. He could see the steps leading to the station up ahead. Walt rubbed grit from his eyes. It was reckless driving with black ice and snow patches on the streets but he had two murder suspects in the back seat.

He was too tired to pull a Soccer Mom over for speeding. Tiredness was dragging at his eyelids and slowing his reaction time. Maybe he’d do what the black bears did and sleep his way through the tail end of winter. Felt like they were onto something right about now. It was a tempting thought to entertain. Nothing but him and the soft darkness of sleep until spring blew in bringing with it green shoots and blue blossoms on delicate forget-me-nots, and orange poppies that cropped up. The ones that popped up on roadsides everywhere. It was heartening to believe, if only for a moment, that if he slept for a month the hole in his chest might have begun to stitch itself back together again when he woke. The changing of the season, his own true love kiss -- if he believed that sort of thing. Which he didn’t, mostly. 

It was a pretty thought nonetheless. Walt entertained the notion for a moment. A moth dancing in front of a flickering fire before self-immolation. Moths always flew too close to the flame didn’t they? All wrapped up in the dancing flicker of orange fire. A beautiful sirens’ call of death. Walt chuffed out a wry laugh, bitter and tired. An old 19th century rhyme echoed through his mind. He’s long since forgotten where he first heard it but the words keep bouncing around in his head. _Humpty Dumpty had a great fall._ It was appropriate; all the best pieces of himself torn away and glue couldn't stem the flow as his insides fell out. 

_Threescore men and threescore more,_

_Cannot place Humpty Dumpty as he was before._

There wasn’t a glue strong enough to fill the gaping hole in his chest. There was no rewinding to _before_ , all Walt could hope to do was go forward from this point on. Henry had been right in the end, the bastard. 

He’d said the damned phrase so often. Sometimes serious, sometimes mocking, mouth always turned up at the corner. _‘It is what it is.’_

_So it is, so it is._ Walt decided laughing under his breath. Henry had finally won the argument. All it took was one of them dying. Winner by default. 

The dead always got the final say. 

Walt would just have to live with it and he would -- live with it. He would make his peace with what happened, with all the things that hadn’t happened but should have. 

But it wouldn’t be today or tomorrow, this was going to take some time. He’d lived with an immovable shadow at his back, a friend he could always count on. Adjusting to Henry’s absence wasn’t going to happen over night. 

Walt noticed Smithson giving him a look through the dash mirror, maybe he thought he’d gone round the bend. _Let the bastard think I’ve lost it._ Maybe he had. Just a little. Shit but it was funny, he’d worked so hard to avoid this very situation only for it to find him in the worst way possible. He’d left Henry alone, the bed warm, the room smelling of sage and sex that night at the _Red Pony_ because he was afraid. Afraid to be happy, afraid to not be alone. Mission accomplished. _They_ were both dead and here he was, not dead. Let the whole world believe he’d lost his mind -- what did it matter. 

His best friend, first greatest love of his life, was dead. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have decided to split chapter 13 into two parts. 
> 
> PS: It only took 70,000+ words but I have finally found two good (and free) editing apps. If you are also an author in need consider using _"Hemmingway Editor."_
> 
> Thoughts and comments are welcome. ❄️


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Walt, you look terrible.”
> 
> Walt smiled, teeth flashing in the early morning light as they stood on the snow-covered steps. Their breath mingled together, curling into the fog. Walt tilted his head into the sunlight piercing through the gray clouds rendered mute by a landslide of emotions crashing into him.
> 
> “I was kidnapped, what is your excuse?” Henry sniffed, pulling himself inward as he fixed a new expression on his face. Walt envied him that ability, at times. To put on a new _face_ when it suited him.

_Absaroka Police Station:_

  
  


Walt pulled his truck into the station when something impossible caught his eye from the periphery. He forgot how to breathe. He also forgot the brakes. Ferg crab-scuttled backward, out of the way. Walt’s runaway truck crashed onto the sidewalk. The deputy was left wide-eyed in the aftermath. Black coffee sloshed on the snow covering the sidewalk, hot steam curdling in the air on impact. 

Walt gulped, hard, his Adam's apple bobbing. _No, no, no._ This wasn’t fair, dammit. He blinked, scrubbing at his face but _it_ was still there three feet from his truck, which was idling on the sidewalk. 

Passersby were becoming curious, peering out to see what was going on. It was strange for them to see his truck, the sheriff's official vehicle, illegally parked on the sidewalk but Walt's attention remained focused on the apparition three feet away. It was almost close enough to touch. If he were to extend his hand they would be touching. Could an apparition be _touched_? Damned if he wasn’t going to find out as soon as he regained command of his limbs. He froze in place. His hands confined to the wheel in a death-grip which stole blood from his digits turning them pale white. Mind struggling to process what his optical nerves were indicating Walt sucked in a sharp inhalation that he released on a wild exhale.

Walt vibrated where he stood, struck dumb. He slowly opened the cab door, breathing hard as if he’d run a mile uphill. His heart was pounding _, thud, thud, thud,_ in his chest loud as the impact of a horse's hooves on dirt. So overwhelming it became all he heard as the world faded into the background. _Henry. Henry. Henry,_ it echoed in between each beat. Walt might have spoken aloud, the name on repeat, a ritualistic chant, a summing through willpower and intent. _Speak it three times and he will appear._ The truth was he didn’t know what his mouth was doing, any more than he could comprehend what it was his eyes were seeing. There was a dissonance, his heart was shouting _‘yes, yes, yes,’_ but his brain said _‘no.’_

Henry Standing Bear was dead, wasn’t he? Walt refused to consider he’d been wrong, not when re-opening that wound only to be wrong would be tantamount to taking a razor blade to the vulnerable, aching things called his heart. It had had its share of hurting, but this remained a step too far to take. Dead was dead -- Walt left that door firmly closed. It was a pure self-defense mechanism, locking out this impossible hope. Walt shook his head, struggling to rationalize. 

It wasn’t working, he couldn't think properly. Not while his eyes kept insisting that he was seeing the impossible. This was a sick joke, his mind slowly fragmenting, but it couldn't be real. _If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth._ His eyes became glassy as he faltered, sweat dampening his brow. He wasted a long moment trying to determine which was the more impossible thing by _Doyle’s_ deductions. 

The self-confessed murder accomplice in the backseat had no reason to lie. In fact, Smithson would be better served if he claimed Henry was _alive_ than dead. A dead man was a noose around his neck and would not assist him in fending off pending murder charges. If he was seeing Henry and Henry were dead that left only one plausible alternative, right? The answer must then be that he was looking at an apparition. _Oh, oh no, not Henry, not this._ Walt closed his eyes tightly, head tucked into his chin. 

He didn’t want his last look of Henry to be an accusation. 

_‘Why did you never come?’_ the vision might ask, and Walt would have no answer worth speaking. _‘I’m sorry,’_ was trite and unfitting for last words shared; even if they might lift the weight stooping his shoulders. 

Anything else he could say was about him, about what _he_ wanted to say, and not about what Henry deserved. 

Words were never needed in great quantity between them, anyhow. Not when Henry knew how to read his silence, and spoke eloquently enough for them both. Yet, there were three small, simple words he ought to have said, at least once more, but never had. It would be selfish, making this about him when he had a vision, some spirit form of his dead best friend, stood before him. 

He’d heard the stories, same as everyone else. The kind that was handed down from a cousin’s aunt’s best friend. But he’d never really believed. Ghosts were bedtime stories for children, not grown men. And yet, here he was, with an impossible situation on his hands. 

_Fuck my life! I’ve lost my mind, haven’t I?_ Walt lifted his head, as he decided he would look. If recriminations were what lay behind those eyes then it was no less than _he_ deserved. If not, well, if not he could look. He'd never minded looking at Henry in life; that much had never changed. Henry was always worth looking at, the stolen moments, the quick flicks of inspection across a crowded room. 

If he _was_ a vision Walt would not turn his face away in shame. It would be a disgrace to all they had ever been _\-- shared --_ to do so now. 

Stealing his resolve he dared another look across the way. Still there, still Henry. Walt made a mental tally of every detail, ingraining each line and scratch into memory, but no matter how hard he searched there was no accusation to be found. 

It was just Henry, a little wearier than the last time he’d seen him standing behind the bar with an apron around his waist, a little thinner than he was used to seeing him, but it was indisputably _Henry_. 

Walt knocked his head against the truck window, just the once, to see if he could still feel it. He did feel it, and it hurt like hell, proving he was still in fact _alive_ . Well, that was one possibility he could give the boot. Every inch of his body was deeply unhappy with him, which it made apparent with various aches and groans hollering for his attention. He felt _old_ , he decided he did not like it much. 

The scraped knuckles that had broken Smithson's nose were sore and bruised, peeled skin raw and pink from exposure. 

His hand, victim to the _Broncos_ metal hood where he'd slammed it, throbbed in tune with the headache he could feel growing. 

A black mass pressing against his brain. His fingers were stiff, in protest, he had forgotten his gloves this morning. 

It was the only thing Martha had always been on his case for. 

_‘Don’t forget these, dear,’_ she used to say, frowning as she offered them to him before he left for work.

Henry, Henry, well, he had a different way. 

_‘Catch,’_ he used to mutter before lobbing them at the back of his head wanting to see if Walt was quick enough to catch them. Nine times out of ten Walt’s gut instinct kicked in, sharp even in a morning haze. 

The times he didn’t Henry laughed at him but it didn’t last long. 

Walt kissed the breath right out of his lungs, pressing him against the closest available wall caged between his arms as he worried the column of his throat with sharp, stinging kisses he soothed with the press of his tongue. Walt only relented, pulling back after Henry was panting and achingly hard against his thigh. 

_‘Who's laughing now, eh?’_ he asked. 

Then, well, he stuffed his hat on his head and went to work. 

So, he hadn’t minded that much either. 

Walt pulled himself from memories that still cut too deep; bludgeoned with unpleasant feelings he had no desire to unpack. No one _dead_ had to deal with this crap, so the verdict said, still alive, then.

Walt took another, slow, step forward, a moth fluttering towards the fire, almost fearful of speaking in case it should break this trance. Before he had been afraid to look, now he couldn't tear himself away. 

“Henry?” he asked. 

A name was playing on repeat in his head, a new kind of mantra. He was stricken and it colored his voice with disbelief. To say Walt muddled his words would have been politeness of great magnitude. _Henry, is that you? How is that you?_ Hope, that slippery, dangerous thing was unfurling its wings as the moment stretched on, it felt like he was stuck in an unending loop, his thoughts bogging him down, but that wasn’t real.

Only seconds had passed between that moment and the sidewalk with Ferg and now. Ferg, who was pale-faced, and shocked planted in the ground. He stayed there any longer and Walt was going to expect him to grow roots into the dirt. 

He was ass deep in the snow, looking at his spilled beverage with his mouth pulled in a moue of distaste. Dampness from hip to thigh was going to leave Ferg chafing at his thighs and crotch if he didn’t get a move on. Walt might have supposed it had been the last cup that existed in the world from the expression pinned to his face. 

Walt took responsibility for the sleep lines at the corner of the young man's eyes. Ferg had been at his desk burning the midnight oil, combing through meager leads on his orders. Walt would make it up to Ferg. Buy him a gift card to one of those fancy coffee houses in _Durant_ , he’d give it to the kid right before he quit. The last thing the townspeople needed was a loony sheriff running around packing heat.

A _‘sorry for almost running you over’_ , _‘so long, kid’_ combo pack. 

Walt was sorrier than he’d ever let on about that, too. He hadn’t meant to lose control like that but this was becoming a hell of a bad day. The slow grind of his grief was chewing at his sanity. It was the only explanation left. He’d never been a fan of sudden changes in his life, which had made married life a whole new kind of interesting. Martha changed the dishware three times on him before they had dragged Henry into the discussion, unwillingly, too. 

Walt sighed, closing his eyes against the memories flashing through his head. The absence of Henry was becoming more acute with every slow, dragging second that passed. 

He thought _his_ name and a ripple went through his body as if a million tiny paper cuts were bleeding him dry. Shredding his insides in slow, quick stabs. 

Living, dead, vision, whatever he was seeing Walt couldn’t bring himself to tear his eyes away. He could hardly make himself blink. Was this a vision? Or had he finally had the heart attack Bloomberg always threatened would catch up to him if he didn’t shape up. That was possible, Walt supposed. The Doc always hounded him to make serious changes to his eating habits. He didn’t have a fucking clue, maybe he had pushed his body past its limit and this was the result. Hallucinations of a dead man he wished more than anything else was alive. It could be that simple. _If it quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, then it really was a duck._ Walt snorted in derision. Henry was gone for three weeks and in less than that Walt found himself unraveling. He was clearly losing his mind, in a very big, and very public manner. 

Henry would have laughed his ass off to see him now. 

Sleep deprivation could induce hallucinations. He hadn’t thought he was that far gone yet, had he miscalculated? It was possible, and a first dammit! More and more he was forced to realize getting older was a real son of a bitch to deal with. 

Walt didn’t spare more than a fleeting glance for his deputy. Seeing that the kid retained the proper number of fingers, toes, and appendages after that little snafu with the brakes he moved on. Ferg wouldn't be needing the hospital.

Walt nimbly stepped out of his cab, each step he took was bringing him closer to unearthing the truth, whatever that might prove to be. If he blinked it would be gone, he was almost sure. So he didn’t blink, mental break or not he wasn’t ready for it to be over. _He_ would be gone if he did, so Walt didn’t blink. His eyes itch, and his hand shook, bunched into a closed fist, but he didn’t _fucking_ blink. 

Had he up and died between one heartbeat and the next? Was his corpse sitting in the cab with Smithson and Holden in the backseat on the road somewhere or was he _seeing_ the recently dead? 

No, no, not even his life could be that fucking cruel. 

To let him see what he could never again touch. 

Walt shook his head, again, seeing if he could shake his brain from this trance, it was breaking his heart. He’d have preferred a broken arm to this gutted sensation that was spinning around his head. It would hurt less. 

It didn’t work, nothing he tried worked. _He_ was still there looking right at Walt, too. Shivers went down Walt's spine as he went cold and hot in turns.

“Henry?” Walt said. 

His voice worked properly this time. He breathed Henry’s name into the morning air like a benediction; a soft-spoken plea for this to be a reality. He _needed_ this to be a reality. His hands, limp at his sides, ached to reach out. He wanted to test the physicality of this vision. 

The idea that ghosts were forced to bear the marks given to them by their tormentors? This seemed worse somehow than anything else he could think of. Worse even than an apparition he could see but not _touch, kiss, hold._ Death should offer freedom of bondage, not eternal chains tied to the living.

A thin scratch ran diagonally across the apparition's face, a small thing. A darkening bruise marred the right side of his face from a man's closed fist, and a red bite mark sat high on his neck.

It looked painful.

Walt cut a look at the man in the backseat of the _Bronco_ who appeared equally dumbfounded.

Like, maybe, _he’d_ just seen a ghost, too.

_Please, please,_ Walt thought, but he got no farther than that. He wanted this to be real and not some figment resurrected by his heart sore brain.

Henry stared back at him for a long silent moment, and then he spoke. “Walt?”

“Shit, kiss and make up already will ya.”

Walt reached for his gun before the voice registered. It was Omar who stood to the left of Henry. A full-blown smirk was visible through his _Hollywood Mountain Man_ beard. He had been so focused on Henry that he hadn’t even seen the other man standing large as life at Henry's side, with a wide-legged stance and arms sternly crossed as he shot a narrow-eyed glower at the two men in the cab as if he knew them from somewhere. Walt, standing on the sidewalk across from Omar and Henry didn’t notice.

_Oh, oh, this was real._ Walt blinked hard, a rush of things crashing into him all at once. This wasn’t a mental break, and Henry was moving at him faster than his usual, slow and easy loping stride. He’d abandoned the pretense of playing at casual indifference that was usually inherent in his every, public, movement. There was also a suspicious, over-bright gleam that had sparked to life in his dark, dearly loved, eyes.

Walt jolted forward, spurred into movement by the unusualness of the situation, anxious to affirm the realness of Henry, as his hands which had frozen into stillness before shook into new life. Walt pulled Henry to his chest in a tight hug as he clapped him on the back. The kind they never shared in public. Part manly back-clapping, part sheer desperation, as his hands gripped the coarse material of Henry’s jacket, sending him careening forward. Henry made a small sound of complaint, but he went willingly. 

_To hell with the public,_ Walt decided. He had never been a man who hesitated to give a hug when a hug was due. Damned if this wasn’t fucking due. 

Henry was _alive._ Walt felt the revelation like a blow; the sting in his chest was a physical pain as jagged edges of his broken places fitted together. Not whole, not yet, but _better._ Between the space of one heartbeat and the next Walt was holding on to the man in front of him. 

Later, remembering, Walt didn’t even recall having moved. Suddenly he was merely standing there, right where he was supposed to be, and so was Henry. Walt, impossibly, tightened his hold a fraction, inhaled the scent of cinnamon, some kind of citrus shampoo, and sweat. Henry made a quiet sound, a faint grunt but went without complaint as his arms looped around Henry’s back, his black hair tickling the side of Walt's face. Walt suspended the moment in his head taking in everything familiar, everything changed. 

_Cinnamon._ There it was, finally. The scent, the man, he’d been chasing this whole damn time. The last confirmation that this was real. Henry was real, made of flesh and blood, not fog and strange magics. Walt stayed, stuck in the extended moment he created in his head observing everything he could; vowing he would never miss seeing something so obvious again. 

There was less weight on Henry than he remembered, but that could be fixed. Proper meals would sort that out, he’d deliver meals himself if that’s what it came to. Hell, he’d cook, if he had too. 

_Learn to cook better,_ Walt amended. No more forgetting what it was he had, no more taking for granted that Henry was always going to just be there in the backdrop of his life, where Walt expected _\-- needed --_ him to be. 

He nodded to himself as logic returned, a bear slowly stretching after a long winter. The order of his thoughts was being reinstated as the sharp pang of grief was driven to the outer edges of his brain. 

Smithson had lied, or maybe he didn’t know he'd been lying at all. Perhaps there had been a private fall out between Smithson and Holden regarding the issue of murder. Killing a man was not as easy to do as people who had only ever seen it done on fake television seemed to believe. 

It didn’t matter. Walt left it alone knowing he’d get the truth of what happened at _Penrose_ from Henry soon enough. This was not an illusion, not a vision. A vision wouldn't bleed or smell like fire-smoke and sage, shaking in his arms, their eyes clenched tight to keep tears from spilling. This was _real._ Walt could feel the warmth from body heat emanating under the palms of his hand.

It was solid reassurance that he wasn’t losing his damn mind.

A certainty he could place faith in as he felt his world rock, wild and unsteady, for the second time today. It felt like some kind of miracle, some obscure magic, as the realness of the situation enfolded him. Henry was _Lazarus_ , risen not from the dead, but from the acceptance of it Walt had been inching towards, like a pebble to the cliff's edge. 

Walt knew, in some small portion of his brain, that he told to _‘shut up’_ that he shouldn’t be doing this. He shouldn’t have leaped in, invading Henry’s personal space by hugging his best friend but he couldn't stop himself. _Do’s_ and _don’ts_ of confronting sexual assault cases ran through his brain; a mental river of words and procedures outlining precautionary measures to ensure survivors weren't re-traumatized. But God. It felt good, to hold him close like this before reality had the chance to break in, wedging itself between them. 

Henry went very still in his embrace, strung taut as a bowstring, before falling into it, into him without any resistance.

Henry _let_ Walt clutch at him so tight it probably hurt. Standing on the sidewalk with Henry pressed close to him Walt could feel the instant things shifted when Henry’s arms came up to wrap around his waist. Walt had expected a playful shove, a bid for space, this open display confused him for an instant. Henry was not unkind in his open regard but his _affection_ was reserved, a private affair for secluded, dim-lit spaces. Walt, a private man himself, had no qualms about this aspect of his personality. 

Walt thought of Smithson, the things he’d said and he closed his eyes tightly, battling the anger that surged to the forefront of his thoughts. Walt counted backward in his head, breathing cinnamon and citrus, a jarring combination that made his nose twitch in displeasure and allowed Smithson to be forgotten. He did not matter. Henry, who was bunching the material of Walt’s jacket in his closed fist, _mattered._ Losing his temper now would not help Henry, so he reigned it in with a sharp mental rebuke. 

His friend was breathing hard, his face tilted down, as he boxed away those things he didn’t want on open display behind an impenetrable wall. Henry could keep his secrets. Walt had plenty of time to tease out the new, hidden things layered behind the old, dig up whatever was his business to know. The moment stretched on, lasting longer than perhaps it should for such a public setting but Walt said nothing. Right then he’d have fought the world for a few more seconds of just _being_. 

Small quakes ran through Henry’s shoulders and it was only Walt’s arms, his wide frame, that served as a buffer between Henry and public view. Walt was glad to offer that much, at least, as small trembles shook Henry’s slighter frame. This was why he hated feeling sometimes, they were intangibles Walt couldn’t fight, or fix for someone else. A man stood alone when confronting the fallout of his thoughts and inner demons. 

For all that he was shaking, just a little, Henry’s face remained dry of tears. Of course, it did, this was Henry whose tears had never been cheaply bought. 

Walt focused on regulating his own breathing as he fought back the wet sting of relief that wanted to cloud his own eyes in a misty film. A few might have escaped, unnoticed. He was content to quietly revel in the fact that he had gotten his best friend back from the dead. Walt swallowed. Breathing the sharp, spicy scent of cinnamon into his lungs Walt disentangled from Henry ending their reunion sooner than he wanted. 

Ferg smiled big and toothy, red cheeks dimpling at their display of open friendship. Walt studiously ignored him refusing to acknowledge the burning of his cheeks to have had such an avid audience. Walt, unlike the kid, had a beard. It wouldn’t show. 

Omar had a deep kindness in him under a gruff exterior and it showed right then, his expression was softer than its usual, cynical, rough demeanor. 

He stood to the side, keeping his ribbing to himself for the time being and Walt was appreciative. 

More times than he could count he’d watched these two poke and prod at one another's sore spots at the _Red Pony_. Omar being all respectful made Walt more than a little uneasy but he was grateful. It crossed his mind that Henry had arrived with Omar and his burgeoning curiosity about this whole awful situation grew. 

Henry, he realized, was looking him over in return now that there was space between them to do so. It was a familiar once over examination that he had been subjected to before, complete with his head canted to the side in a manner Walt had always secretly found endearing. 

“Walt, you look terrible.”

Walt smiled, his teeth flashing white in the early morning light as they stood on the snow-covered steps. Their breath mingled together, curling into the fog. His head tilted into the shafts of golden sunlight piercing through the gray clouds rendered mute by a landslide of emotions crashing into him.

“I was kidnapped, what is your excuse?” Henry sniffed, pulling himself inward as he fixed a new expression on his face. 

Walt envied him that ability, at times. 

To put on a new _face_ when it suited him. Then he remembered _why_ Henry had learned to do it over the years, to hide what he didn’t want to be observed, and he didn't. 

Walt was an open book presently. He was well aware that every thought in his head was probably written in bold across his face right now but that didn’t bother him any. When it came to Henry it never had. 

Emotions spilled through, it made his voice ragged when he spoke. “Henry I thought -- I thought you were dead. I thought I was seeing -- seeing apparitions, _again_.” 

“I almost didn’t believe my eyes. Henry.” Walt murmured into his friend's ear, close and intimate, as he spontaneously hugged him, _again_ , he couldn't seem to help it. 

“Henry ---” Walt’s speech faltered his breath freezing when Henry’s hand brushed the base of his neck. Henry’s thumb trailed against the sensitive skin in a single, _secret_ caress. Why was it, he forgot how damn gentle Henry could be until he had his hands on Walt’s skin? 

He wanted nothing else but to press into that light contact, a calloused thumb pressing against nerves that screamed for _more_ , but he didn’t. He practiced restraint even as his blood rushed with excitement. 

“Walt,” Henry said, quiet and slow, as though his name had become something remarkable, a question and answer rolled into four letters. 

“Walt,” he repeated but said nothing else as they lingered, stationary in an insulated bubble, separate from the outside world. Walt didn’t know why, but hearing his name said like that made his chest tug with a familiar, old pain. 

Henry sounded so lost. 

Before he could follow that suspicion Henry slipped an arm around Walt’s shoulders as he held on right back in a way Henry so rarely engaged in. 

People took one look at him, tall, broad-shouldered, square-jawed, and thought he was undemonstrative. 

The classic, close-mouthed cowboy. 

He could be, that was true enough, but there were times, oh there were times, he felt like it was Henry that reserved more of his inner self than he ever could. 

At that moment Henry was holding on as tightly as he was, and he loved it, and he hated it in equal measure. Hated that what happened made Henry, the toughest guy he knew, _cling_ to his jacket that little bit more than was customary. 

Loved it, too because fuck all, had he _missed_ him. 

Walt stood outside the police station relishing his impossible, _improbable_ moment. He could hear cars zipping down the street and feel the burn of curious eyes on his back, but he didn’t care. 

Henry was _alive_.

“I thought you were dead,” Walt repeated. 

“I thought I was losing my mind.” His head tilted low to hide the hot wetness he could feel springing to his eyes. 

Henry pulled back, easily freeing himself from Walt’s embrace, so he could look him square in the eye. 

Henry's grip on his arm became a band of iron, real, and strong.

“I am real,” Henry said, “I am with you.”

Walt swayed his ears ringing with Henry’s declaration. Lightheadedness from adrenaline and lack of sleep finally catching up to bite him in the ass. He almost fell to his knees in an embarrassing display of weakness. 

Henry ducked under his arm, keeping him upright. Walt laughed softly, head tucked over Henry’s shoulder. It struck him as both strange and poetic that after everything, all the shit he’d heard today, it was still Henry who was holding him up.

It felt exactly like old times, Henry pulling him back from the brink. Him pulling _Henry_ out from whatever fight he’d become embroiled in. For a second it felt like they had the good times back, from before it all went sour.

“Whoa there, cowboy,” Henry muttered as he steadied Walt. His eyebrow climbed to dangerous heights when he too observed the faint tremor in Walt’s left hand.

Walt knew that look and wilted, just a little. It was no secret that Henry and the Doc both disapproved of his coffee habit. So long as _they_ never realized that he would be fine.

Henry frowned, his expression pinched. “Too much coffee?”

Walt sighed, rubbing his forehead, visibly drooping under Henry’s sharp look. “Too much coffee. Not enough food.”

Ferg was marching the suspect past Walt when it happened. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Smithson snarled when he saw Henry up close. No wonder he’d looked like he’d seen a ghost. There must be one hell of a story behind this miscommunique.

“You’re supposed to be dead!” Smithson said.

Ferg went pale at the suspects' accusation. His head turned first to Henry and then the suspect in his custody. Walt cut a glance towards Henry of his own who merely shrugged in return, his mouth pulled in a tight, thin line.

“Chickenshit Mitch didn’t do it, that’s it, isn’t it? I should have known he couldn’t off you. Fuck!” Smithson ranted complete with a red-face and flying spittle.

With Henry alive, Smithson would have a harder time dodging those charges Walt was going to write up. Smithson’s restrained hands were _tap-tapping_ against his thigh, sweat was popping up at his forehead. His face fell under a shadow of ugliness. If the man hadn’t been sweating before, he was now and Walt got front row seats.

Henry met Smithson’s furious gaze, his expression flat and unblinking. “No, Trig,” he said, his tone hard enough to cut glass. “I am not dead.”

Henry’s face had become shuttered and closed off. He remained otherwise impassive adopting a wide-legged, defiant stance at Walt's side.

Henry was unreadable, at that moment. It was through the painful clenching of his fingers at Walt’s elbow, a single, strong point of connection that allowed him to peel back the veil, glimpsing the truth. Henry was not as unaffected as he pretended. 

The bruises he was going to be sporting on his elbow tomorrow were a testament to that. 

Smithson glowered his eyes hard as chipped ice. “This wasn’t the plan!”

Henry, then, did something startling. He laughed darkly, a sharp expulsion of sound that disrupted the moment. Walt shifted on the balls of his feet, hearing Henry like that, _bitter_ , it made him uneasy. 

“I heard about your plan when Mitch kidnapped me, and again when Mitch let me go free.” Henry studied Smithson, his lip curling in a mocking snarl. “It would appear you and Mitch did not have the _same_ one.”

Smithson let loose with a vicious bellow. He thrashed, bucking hard against Ferg’s grip on his upper arms, succeeding in freeing himself. He lunged at Walt and Henry who stood off to the side of the steps.

Henry slipped out from under Walt’s arm, forcibly shoulder checking Smithson. Henry brought his knee up, smashing it into the man's groin as he doubled over, collapsing in a heap of tangled limbs at Henry’s feet. 

Walt watched from the sidelines. His help was not required. Smithson fell into cement and hard-packed snow with an audible _crack_ as his nose bent in ways not intended for fragile cartilage. 

He also went down hard, making a public spectacle of himself. 

He screamed and wailed, with his hands protectively cupped over his balls as an embarrassing, high-pitched wheeze escaped his mouth. 

It was a dirty move Henry employed, perhaps, but Walt vibrated with satisfaction to see Smithson knocked down a peg. He was glad Henry was the one to do it, too. It was a relief to know that whatever had happened at _Penrose_ the Henry he knew, who pulled dirty tricks to win when he had to, was still the man who’d come back to him. 

Walt would have laughed at Smithson, but he was occupied with steadying Henry, keeping him on his feet as a shudder rippled through his body. After he’d taken a few deep breaths Henry shook off the impact, an unmistakable glow of satisfaction about the straight set of his shoulders and the high tilt of his chin.

It did Walt’s heart good to see, it gave him hope. 

Walt resisted the urge to physically inspect Henry for hidden injuries. From the way he’d reacted to his move against Smithson, there were definitely injuries under his clothes. He noticed when they were standing closer Henry had been holding himself stiffly. His upper back, in particular, something form of injury with his upper torso Walt guessed. Protective instincts surged to the forefront, but he kept himself in check. 

He would not drag Henry to a washroom, stall, or unoccupied storage closest. He wanted to assess the damage for himself but new boundary lines existed now. He had to respect that. If such measures had not been welcome _before_ \-- and they had rarely been well received in the past _\--_ then they would not be welcome _now_. 

Henry shot him a warning look, no doubt knowing exactly what it was he wanted to do. 

Walt shook his head and held up his hand in surrender, quelling the heated look Henry had directed at his person. Walt knew when a battle was lost before it began. 

No one made Henry do anything if he didn’t want to, not even Walt. 

Henry should be at the hospital. Short of forcibly dragging him there against his will that wasn’t going to happen right now so Walt let it go without a fight. Walt wasn’t going to let himself become another man forcing Henry to do something he didn’t want, not right now. Henry was a practical man, essentially, he would do it on his own given enough time to think about it. Henry was upright and mobile as far as he could see, but that wasn’t saying much. Henry was completely engulfed in one of Omar’s winter-gear jackets. 

Walt felt his cheeks burn, glad he could blame the low temperatures, he should have figured out the truth. Fitted out in Omar’s olive-green winter parka, dressed in another man's ill-fitted clothes, there was no way Henry could have been an _apparition_ . Not that he planned to tell them, but maybe the Doc and Henry were both right. A _little_ less coffee might be a good thing if it went toward avoiding future mistakes of this nature.

Omar cursed a blue streak off to the side drawing his attention back to the suspect. Meanwhile, Ferg rushed headlong into the fray grabbing Smithson’s blood crusted collar to haul him upright, which from the way the suspect carried on he most certainly did not like. 

Smithson howled, shouting obscenities into the empty street and at Henry in particular. Which Walt did object to. Henry's hand on his arm prevented him from taking action, allowing Ferg to grapple with the man. 

Walt grimaced, his hands clenching to fists. 

If he got involved _he’d_ be the one facing charges, not Smithson. 

Henry knew him too well. 

Smithson thrashed, kicking up snow as he tried to free himself but only succeeded in twisting to the side, boots slipping on ice. He toppled the last three feet into the street. He also came within an inch of taking Ferg with him as his forward momentum sent him sprawling, face down. 

A wet crunch and the squeal of tires as a car lay into the brakes, a white minivan careened to a halt. Red blood pooled in the snow, the stink of copper strong the air, and a woman’s frantic shrieks pierced the air. 

And just like that, quickly as the beat of a hummingbird's wings, it over. Smithson’s blood-splattered the curb, draining into the snow where his body lay, and smeared on the grill of the minivan in a nightmarish display. 

Henry gasped, his eyes widening at the sudden turn of events. Walt was too worn out from the cumulative shocks he’d received today to react with anything other than a slow blink. Part of him was relieved, too. _Ding, dong, the bastard was dead._ It was a car, not a house, that did the deed, but Walt would take it. It was done, that’s what counted. 

Smithson was dead, and there was no point in him making a show of checking the corpse, there was no surviving that type of impact. Let the others think he was too old and tried, he was. 

He felt every single year. 

Walt let his deputy check for a pulse at the blood-soaked neck of the would-be murderer slash rapist. Walt didn’t have it in him to pretend he cared. Not when Henry was warm and real at his side. He wasn’t letting go a moment sooner than necessary, and that moment was coming, too. 

Walt could feel it and _hummed_ in discontent.

The man on the street twitched once before going completely limp. He reminded Walt of a snake caught in the mower. How its springy coils jerked, as it confronted sudden, violent death. Ferg had called for the ambulance but Smithson would be cold and dead before it arrived. Walt stayed where he was, shoulder to shoulder with Henry on the steps. He’d already been in contact with Smithson more than he cared to be. Sitting in the same vehicle as he had made Walt feel dirty, contaminated. He shot a brief glance at Henry and tried not to think about that too much. It was done, time to move on, right? 

It was never that simple but he lived in hope. 

Walt flicked his eyes toward Henry who was watching the scene with rapidly flicking eyes, taking it all in. He didn’t know what Henry felt, he was unreadable, but Walt liked to think there was something of relief in the edges of his expression. Smithson was dead. It wasn’t a magic fix, but it was something. 

DOI was what the report Ferg would write up later would say. Walt should have cared more about the dead body staining the snow red, but he didn’t. All he thought of staring at the corpse was a rattler being run over as it slithered across a highway. It dreamed too big, catching its tail in the snare of something bigger than itself. 

That was all Hector _“Trig”_ Smithson had amounted to in the end.

Another dead snake stretched out in the road.

Walt and Henry turned as one sharing a look of understanding, a mental shrug, as they took in the scene. A broken body in the street and a distraught Soccer Mom wringing her hands, anxious and pale-faced. 

She had been the instrument of death. Walt was sorry for that, sorrier than anything he could express, but he also didn’t have a single regret. If Smithson had been allowed to live he could have ruined Henry’s life in this town and there would have been precious little Walt could have done. His body ached, tired of the relentless cold, various joints bellyaching for being so rudely neglected, but most of all he was weary hearted. 

Smithson had come within inches of getting those 60 seconds of fame. 

Within those 60 seconds, he would have upheaved Henry’s life in the process. Maybe ruined it, too. Walt liked to think the people of this town, his town, were better than that, but there was no telling about these things sometimes. He was relieved he wouldn't have to discover the true faces of the people he served. How useless Walt would have been, him and his badge if he couldn’t spare the people in his life that public degradation. The stigma associated so often with sexual assault was not a thing of the past, relegated to days of antiquity; human nature being what it was it might never be. 

Standing on the sidewalk Walt mentally calculated the best way to handle this new situation he’d been handed. He had to keep this quiet from here on out, everything he knew about Henry said he wasn’t going to want this to become public knowledge. Hell, if he’d known Henry was alive he would have done things the Lucien way, _goodness_ be damned, and that would have been an end to it. 

Perhaps it was for the best he hadn’t known. Karma had a strange way of leveling the playing field, in the end. 

Henry brushed his shoulder, in an absent gesture for consolidation. Walt could see the lines of tension in Henry’s shoulders ease up as he stared at the body in the road. It was as if he could see the spirit of life leaving its body. 

His eyes became chips of obsidian, shining with dark relief. 

“He is dead.” Henry sounded uncertain, for all that they had both seen the man stop moving, blood draining into the snow. 

“Yep, looks that way.” Walt nodded firmly, staring at the unmoving body. The sound of sirens slowly coming closer sounded off in the distance. 

“He’s dead, Henry. It’s over.”

Henry remained silent, watchful but unspeaking. He looked like a man who was afraid to hope that it might really be over and Walt didn’t blame him. He bet he wasn’t the only one who’d had a hell of a day. Smithson had taken Henry for dead, after all. 

There existed a small, vicious part of Walt which still wished he’d been the one to do the deed, the instrument that escorted Smithson from life but karma had spared him that and he was content that it was done. 

No one had killed Smithson. In the end, _Smithson_ had killed Smithson. His resistance to an officer's lawful demand had resulted in a scuffle and vehicular accident. Ferg had been a victim, the woman in the burgundy sweater had been a victim, Henry had been a victim, Smithson had been a _Son of Sam_ in the making and now he was dead. No one would weep when he was put in the ground, least of all Walt Longmire. 

In the middle of the fracas, Ferg boldly stepped up to the plate following the procedure like he’d learned to do from tailing Branch and him on the job. Walt stood off to the side, quietly proud to see the deputy shining in his own right as he took charge. 

He’d flicked a rapid, questioning look to Walt, expecting him to take the lead, but when he didn’t Ferg didn’t hesitate. He leaped in with both feet, a little peaked at the sight of Smithson’s body, but still. He did good, for a junior deputy. Ferg knelt checking for a pulse but finding none he turned his attention to the distraught woman recognizing that she was someone he could assist. Ferg patted at the woman's burgundy knit sweater as he shepherded her away from the scene, purposefully placing himself in a position that blocked her view of the corpse. Walt was content to watch, a silent witness. 

Ferg was doing and saying everything that he needed to. _‘Don’t worry’_ and _‘You didn’t do a thing wrong, okay? Sometimes these things happened. Now, calm down and take deep breaths.’_ Walt had been down that road before talking down innocent citizens; people who got caught up in the sidelines of criminal activities but were essentially blameless.

Ferg made eye contact, his hand offering comfort as he spoke. “Don’t worry ma’am, you couldn’t have stopped, not with him leaping into the street like that, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

Ferg handed her a tissue. Walt could see the woman nodding as she listened. The color was returning to her delicate, heart-shaped face as Ferg spoke to her in calm, gentle tones. 

“Everything is going to be okay, I promise,” he said.

Walt shifted on his feet, quite suddenly feeling very tired and wistful. _‘Everything is going to be okay’_ was not a promise _he_ could make. Satisfied that he could leave Ferg in charge of the scene Walt allowed Henry to guide him up the steps. 

Walt feigned weakness, playing it up a little. No, that was a consolatory lie. Fatigue was setting in and he didn’t see the use of false bravado, not when it was just the two of them that would know. It didn’t matter which it was, did it? Henry never left his side. He was tucked close to Walt with an arm around his waist. Right now, at that moment, that was all Walt could think of wanting. More than he’d thought to ever have again just hours ago. 

If Henry hadn’t been there to keep him steady he might have fallen down, as it was Walt leaned into him harder than he should, he knew that because Henry grunted as he took on more of his weight but his grip remained strong. Walt noticed his knees were wobbly, his breath was erratic, and his adrenaline crash was setting in fast and hard, this was no time for pride to be getting in the way. He accepted the help offered with grace and they both turned their backs to the dead body in the street. Smithson was in the past now; he would never harm another person. 

Walt spared an afterthought for the poor woman. His heart twinged with sympathy for her. She would probably have to go to counseling for this, it wasn’t an easy thing. The taking of human life, it exacted a toll of its own. Ferg was doing well with her, speaking with her, patting her hand, listening as she spoke. Sometimes that was the most important thing an officer could do, listen to the people and their stories. He felt bad that he didn’t feel worse. Today that woman had been unprecedented, karmic intervention, and Walt was glad. _Thank God. Thank God she was in the wrong place, at the right time._ Walt wasn’t proud of it, but that was all he thought on the matter. _Thank God for Soccer Moms._ She brought justice, and she didn’t even know it. He knew it was callous but Smithson had hurt his friend. 

Hurt _Henry._

He’d sunk his venom deep, it didn’t take a genius to see that. He’d leave marks that might never fade. Walt allowed himself to be spiteful. It was his right. 

Walt hobbled up the steps, satisfied with his lot in life as he leaned into the body tucked into his side. Henry, his best friend, the first greatest love of his life, was alive and well. Failing that, alive, and on the way to _being_ well. Walt would make sure of it, come hell or high water, this was something he could do.

Henry was still here, still, _with_ him, God alone knew why. He would make things right between them if it was the last thing he did. 

All it had taken was Smithson rolling into town under a dark star for Walt to realize he’d gone about things all backward. 

Martha, wherever she was, was probably pissed as hell. Walt imagined her pretty face, the red flush dotting high on her cheeks and her hands fisted at her hips. She’d be wearing _‘That Look’_ and she’d be right. What a mess he’d made, the unnecessary heartache he’d caused. 

She’d loved Henry as much as he did. Walt sometimes forgot, lost in his own head, his own black grief. He needed to make this right if he could. 

For himself, for Henry. Walt was at his best when he was with Henry, he _needed_ him, he _loved_ him. He always had, and he always would, so he might as well make peace and fix this. Simple. Easy. He was good at talking Henry around if he was given a chance. That was all he’d ask for, just one chance to set the record straight. 

It wouldn't be what it was before, Walt accepted that. It would be different, no question, but he still believed it could be something good. 

_‘Love, when it’s strong when it’s true, is never wrong,’_ Martha said that, once. 

_‘What exactly are you saying, to be clear,’_ Walt asked, wanting to get it right, understand what she was implying. This beautiful, brave, woman who had a hold over his heart, and he didn’t even mind. 

_‘When I fell into your arms and your life I did so with my eyes wide open Walter Longmire,’_ Martha said, stepping into his arms, which were open and waiting for her. She fit against his chest like he’d been made to hold her. 

Her head tilted back, meeting his eyes. _‘To know you, to love you, a person’s got to love Henry, too.’_

Walt swallowed, hesitant to ask, but needed to know. Martha smiled, a soft reassurance as she patiently waited for him to speak the thoughts churning through his head.

_‘Can you?’_ he asked, it was the crux of the matter, really. If she could accept that his heart had been divided into two, that it always would.

_‘Yes, Walt.’_ She smiled, looking over his shoulder at the mountain ranges surrounding Absaroka, there was a quiet yearning hidden behind her expression. _‘Henry is a bit like the sharp breeze that cuts through the mountains, you know? The one, right before winter sets in, brisk, but a welcome relief after a hot summer.’_

She wore a distant look, measuring her words with care as she spoke, and her words were different than the ones locked behind his teeth, rattling against his rib-bones, but there was that same spark. 

Walt knew it intimately. 

He’d glimpsed it in the mirror often enough to recognize it in another.

Martha sighed, her head resting against his chest. 

_“Besides, it’s impossible not to love someone who loves you exactly as much as I do, Walter. With all their being.’_

Walt backpedaled. _‘Well, darlin’, I don’t know --’_

_‘He does, he won't say, but he does.’_ Martha didn't let him finish, which was indicative of how strongly she believed what she said. 

She always let him finish his thoughts, it was part of what he loved about her, she let him take his time to find them, finish them. 

Walt didn’t have to blurt them out unfinished before he was ready for them to be heard. Martha listened with intent. Waited for him to be ready to make his opinion known, just like...well, Henry. 

Martha knew he had trouble with that sometimes.

_‘I love you, honey, you know that, right?’_ Martha asked. Walt nodded, waiting to see where this was going. Unsure if he should be thrilled or horrified by the ensuing conversation. 

_‘I love your silences, your smiles -- you’re my morning sunrise, did you know? That calm, peaceful moment before the day starts when everything is warm and quiet,’_ Martha explained, her voice soft, but so very certain. Warmth threaded through her words so deeply that he could almost feel them, a gentle chain looped between him and her that blanketed him in the soft glow of her affections. 

Walt thought he began to understand. _‘I’m not trying to embarrass you, I’m just explaining. So you’ll know. I love you.’_

_‘I love your friend too, Walt.’_ Martha pressed a kiss to his chest, wrapping her arms around him tightly as she could. _‘I know that maybe I shouldn’t, maybe I should ask you to stop.’_

Walt said nothing listening to her every word, his head ringing as he tried to imagine a world where his heart didn’t speak _‘Henry’_ with every other beat. It felt very bleak and gray, to change a thing that was fact. 

Martha patted his chest, gentle, always gentle. _‘Breath Walt, I won't ask that, how could I? That would be the height of hypocrisy. Besides -- I know what he means to you. How could I ask that and claim to love you?’_

_‘Henry is...Henry, a jaded man with perfect, parochial-English diction...and a smile as rare as yours. For all that, he’s easy to love. If he let more people see the real him, they’d see it too,’_ Martha’s thumb brushed Walt's lip, asking for a kiss.

Walt bent lower, happy to oblige.

Martha smiled into his mouth, whispering against his cheek, like they were sharing a secret. 

_‘But he doesn't, does he?’_

Walt leaned into her touch, needing it. _‘_

_No, he doesn’t,’_ he muttered into the top of her blond curls, smelling lavender and earth from her gardening. 

Deena Two Camps had seen what Martha did, what Walt had. Deena kept returning to Absaroka and it sure wasn’t for the pool games. But it never worked with her and Henry, for one reason or another, it never would. 

Martha cupped the side of Walt's face, her fingers rubbing against the bristles on his cheek as her expression became fiercer. 

_‘That ours, just for us.’_

Martha, being a clever woman, was right. She often had been. 

“Walt?” Henry’s voice cut through the threads of the past like a knife through gossamer. Walt had the sinking suspicion he’d called his name more than once if the tight furrowing of his brows was anything to be reading into. 

“What?” Walt mumbled, shuffling his feet awkwardly as he realized he must have stopped moving, caught up in the soft glow of the past. Days gone by that could never be recaptured in full. 

He expected Henry to say something acerbic as he wrestled back control of the situation but that was not what happened. Henry, for all the shit he’d been through recently, was still capable of incredible kindness at the most unexpected times. 

“Wherever you were,” he remarked, playfully tapping Walt’s forehead, “it was not here.” 

Walt shrugged, not wanting to admit that he’d fallen into the past because that would lead to talking about his thoughts and he was still organizing them. 

Henry did not press for answers, he just shook his head. He wasn’t smiling, exactly, but the hard lines at the corners were thinning out the longer they spoke and Walt was glad. 

Henry cleared his throat, he wasn’t shuffling his feet or anything but Walt could see the strangeness of the situation was getting to him as well. 

“I need to get you inside before your fingers become popsicle sticks.” 

“I forgot my gloves.”

“Yes, you have.”

“There was a case,” Walt admitted. 

Henry snorted. 

“If the past is any indicator there will always be a case.”

Walt paused as he rolled through the index of responses he could snap back. He swallowed and decided to take a chance. 

“Well, maybe I wouldn't forget so much if someone was around to remind me…” 

He’d taken Henry by surprise, he could tell. He watched as Henry stilled, his hands tightened at his waist, unconsciously digging into his ribs. 

“Not all the time, course, but -- sometimes.”

“Hmm.” 

It was not a flat out _‘no’_ so Walt did not allow himself to be too disappointed. He’d been turning this thought over in his head for a long while, it was only fair to allow Henry time to consider the offer in return. He’d rather wait for his answer than receive an off-hand no. 

Walt decided this was one of the less thought out decisions he’d made; it was a terrible time to spring unexpected propositions on the man but he didn’t retract his offer.

Walt turned his head downwards, noticing up close the thin cuts and abrasions on Henry like he’d caught twigs and tree branches with his face. It looked as if he’d been stumbling through the woods in the dark. He’d get the story in full soon enough, so he let the question lie unasked. 

The bite mark on the side of Henry’s neck looked terrible up close, too. It made Walt cringe instinctively to see but beneath that was Henry. 

_His_ Henry, still handsome in his own way. 

Sharp cheekbones, kissable mouth, hair blacker than a raven's-wing, and a private, _intimate,_ smile that could be sweet as hell. If and when he wanted. 

Walt felt his cheeks burn when Henry caught him at it but he didn’t look away either. Henry never missed a trick, did he? He had eyes quick as the flash of a quail's wing, he saw a lot with those eyes, more than Walt wanted him to, sometimes. 

But not this time, this time it was fine. 

It was what he wanted. 

Henry lifted his eyebrow in a wordless query. _‘Yes?’_ he seemed to ask without ever speaking aloud. 

Walt shrugged and grinned. A small, bashful thing for getting caught but remained wholly unapologetic for his crime. 

Henry huffed but maintained his silence. 

Walt’s grin deepened, becoming bolder as his heart gave a little kick in his chest. Hope, it was the thing with wings, and he could feel the flutter as it tickled against his ribs. That was the same exact sound Henry typically made when he felt Walt was being absurd about something. 

Maybe it was. 

Maybe _he_ was, but Walt wasn’t about to apologize. 

Henry was worth looking at. 

Walt hummed, content to let the still moment last, wordless, and unbroken. _Best friend, the first greatest love of my life, favorite pain in my ass. Henry Standing Bear._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Foreword:_ As some readers may be aware I recently did an overhaul on all chapters of _“Winter.”_ It is only now that I have reached the holding place where I left off months ago. If you are a reader who has followed this narrative from the beginning you have my deepest love and heartfelt condolences. Apologies for the wait. To every soul who has _commented or kudoed_ thank you. Each one has uplifted my spirits and reminded me that there may yet linger a few interested readers. This was an adventure I set for myself when I first fell in love with the Longmire series and Henry Standing Bear in particular. However, I was delighted to find a few fellow writers, and Longmire fans along the way. One such was _Piccola_Poe_ , who has my sincerest gratitude for all assistance granted. I am not saying it would not have happened without you but -- _*stage whisper*_ It would not have happened, so thanks! I have never in my life written so much, nor had quite so much fun in the attempt. Without further ado I present a strongly revised chapter.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You are going to have to let go now, Walt,” Henry said. Walt shivered at his words even though he could see Henry eyeing the narrow space that led to the upstairs section of the department, his brows furrowed in annoyance. 
> 
> Walt hummed, disgruntled that the moment was broken. Henry extracted himself from his side, quick and painless, like the ripping off of a band-aid and Walt damn near winced at the loss. He expected Henry to laugh at him when he glanced back because a small, irrational part of him worried that his friend would vanish as the last Henry apparition had. That he’d become little more than a shade pulled back into nothingness. 
> 
> Walt was Orpheus exiting the Underworld. 

_Absaroka, Wyoming_

_Sheriff's Department:_

The station doors fell shut behind them enclosing the men in a temporary sanctuary of two; for a single moment, it was only them that existed. _Alone, at last._ Walt looked over at Henry, alive and breathing the same space as he was, and his heart fluttered. Just the one time. Before it's quiet thumps faded back into the backdrop. Business as usual. Walt realized it had been a close shave, this time. Death had near-to come between this moment ever happening, but it hadn’t and here they were, together. Walt squeezed Henry’s hand, just once, before letting it fall away. 

He took comfort in the physicality of being able to do that. Such a small gesture. A natural one too, reaching for someone's hand when the world outside became grim and cold. It felt important, necessary. Especially after having almost been divided by the unsurpassable wall of Death. In that shining moment, it could be _Walt and Henry,_ absent the background noise of the street and passing cars or curious, staring people. Walt didn’t speak. He breathed in the perfect silence as his world righted itself. Signaling a return to the natural order of things. To him it was both fortuitous and a good sign that the sun was burning through the grey, cumulus clouds as it flooded the stairwell with incandescent light. It was a relief to cast off the shit and gloom he’d been wading through all day, breathing in a little peace, and taking in sunlight.

Henry’s reaction did not escape his notice either. He’d tipped his head back letting it dance across his face, taking in a deep breath. 

There were ghosts in Henry’s eyes. 

Walt imagined the light was chasing them away. 

He shuddered as he wondered exactly how long his friend had been kept in that tiny, dim-lit room. Alone with nothing to do but count the shadows on the wall. He didn’t want to think too long on that, not now, not ever again.

Walt enjoyed the light as it poured down. He watched the becoming play of light on Henry’s admittedly tired face trying not to think too hard about the past. There would be time enough for unraveling the full horror. 

At that moment it looked as though half Henry’s face was touched by the warm glow of sunlight. The rest remained in shadows. 

It was a sobering moment. A stern reminder, too. No matter how collected Henry seemed he had been put through hell by an obsessive stalker and a sociopath. Walt could see the little things that were out of place. The faint shakes in Henry’s hands, the hypervigilance that had only eased up when he’d shut out the world with the closing of the station doors. Walt saw it all. Took in each detail, each micro-flinch, and every new ghost. Because these things were his business to know. 

Walt didn’t know it for a fact but he began to see how this had begun. Hindsight was 20/20. There had been warning signs, there must have been. Walt suspected when he did get to ask he’d find out there had been hang-up calls in the evenings at the very least, possibly a few suspicious lurkers after dark prior to Henry’s kidnapping. 

Henry should have come to him with this but he hadn't and he’d be mad about that later. The way things stood he was as much to blame and he would have to own that responsibility. He’d been a coward, but not anymore and _never_ again. 

Henry was his own man, always had been. Knowing this Walt allowed himself some leeway. He was more than prepared to own up to his faults, but he’d place even bets Henry would have kept such matters to himself regardless. Walt decided to let it lie forgotten -- there was no changing the past. 

Still, Walt planned to consider this one in as a win. The scent of cinnamon and sage was real this time. It wasn’t another strange vision conjured by a desperate heart. He couldn’t kiss Henry, he couldn’t hold him. Not any closer than he already was, leastwise. But that was okay. They were navigating new waters, dark and deep, it would take time to reach okay. He was confident that what was hurt could be healed, given the proper time. 

The infinite moment that stretched out between them began to break like thin ice. Someone had to speak up, and it would either be him or Henry. He wanted it to be him, this time. He had things that had been distilling on his mind for quite some time now. A million words curled on the tip of his tongue, unbreakable words that bubbled to the surface. It was freeing, in its way, to know his own mind, what he wanted. Of those million’s of words he’d been turning over in his head, he decided he only needed three. 

He opened his mouth to speak but his words were preempted. Lips, warm and surprisingly soft pressed to the corner of his mouth. As far as kisses rated it was chaste. 

It was little more than a quick, almost innocent, press of dry lips but it still left him tingling. Hope bloomed in his chest and Walt saw a glimpse of what could be flashing before his eyes. 

Quick as it began it was at an end. 

Henry stepped back, exiting his personal space and Walt knew well enough to let him go, even if he didn’t want to. Walt let the tips of his fingers trace the sharp curve of Henry’s cheek before he dropped his hand. He’d gotten a dab of blood on him from Henry’s cut but he didn’t care. It wouldn't be the first time he’d gotten Henry's blood on his hands. 

The kiss spoke to Walt of a promise, of things to be shared later. But it also said, _‘not now.’_

Walt accepted Henry’s choice and let the matter drop. He didn’t follow him. He didn’t pull him into a deeper, longer kiss. Chase the taste of him with this tongue until they were breathless and desperate. This was not the time or the place. But there would come such a time, he knew that now. 

Walt folded his arms across his chest to keep from reaching out as he banked the fire that had sparked in his belly. 

A kiss could just be a kiss, he knew that but that had been _more_. He knew it from the crown of his head to the tip of his toes it was more. His earlier proposition was under due consideration. 

His pulse jackhammering in his chest Walt licked his lips, tasting traces of coffee and whiskey on his tongue. It was a habitual, unconscious reaction. Chasing the taste of Henry’s lips against his. 

He didn’t even catch on to what he’d done until Henry blinked, the ghost of something like amused startlement lifting the corner of his mouth. 

He’d surprised Henry with his strong reaction to such a chase overture, then. _Good_ , Walt thought, pleased even if it hadn’t been intentional. 

He saw some of the Henry he knew in private standing across from him now, the man who kissed him like he owned him, who held onto him in the dark like Walt was the only man he’d ever wanted. Walt decided the odds were in his favor and smiled, wide and giddy as a schoolboy at prom.

No, no that wasn’t quite it either. Like a man who had a shot at winning back the best thing that had ever happened to him and nights the likes of which no schoolboy knew to dream. 

Walt spared a moment to wish he’d shaved at the station before he dismissed the thought. He distinctly recalled a time when kisses had been deep and filthy, his stubble leaving abrasions on muscular thighs he’d had wrapped tight around his waist half the night. 

Henry arched an eyebrow at him, grinning a little in return.

Walt felt his face grow hot. 

There was no way Henry could possibly know what he had been thinking. Maybe it was an OIT, but he doubted it. It was probably a _Henry and Walt_ thing, this ability he had to read Walt like a book. 

Henry didn’t speak, but the faint curl of his lips said enough. 

Walt hated it when he did that. He’d go all stoic. No trace of a smile on his lips but Henry’s eyes -- they’d be fucking dancing. 

‘ _I am laughing at you, you fool_ ,’ he said without speaking a single word. 

Henry knew how to spark him up with just a look, a glance across a crowded room, and suddenly he was hot under the collar and wishing they were alone. It never failed to leave him floundering as he tried to find his footing. 

He loved it, too. 

Just a little. 

Henry could do that with one look. 

Send those butterflies flapping in his belly. 

A kiss, dry and chase, and desire sparked like tinder. 

Henry affected him, even after all these years. Always floored him when it happened and he knew he would never get enough. Thirty-some years was a long, long while. By now Walt knew this feeling was here to stay, rooted in deep. It wasn’t a passing fancy when he was eighteen and that hasn’t changed now that he wore more miles with the gray in his hair to prove it. 

“You are going to have to let go now, Walt,” Henry said. Walt shivered at his words even though he could see Henry eyeing the narrow space that led to the upstairs section of the department, his brows furrowed in annoyance. 

Walt hummed, disgruntled that the moment was broken. Henry extracted himself from his side, quick and painless, like the ripping off of a band-aid and Walt damn near winced at the loss. He expected Henry to laugh at him when he glanced back because a small, irrational part of him worried that his friend would vanish as the last Henry apparition had. That he’d become little more than a shade pulled back into nothingness. 

Walt was Orpheus exiting the Underworld. 

He could hear the slow steps of his loved one at his back but he couldn’t resist the temptation to turn, to see for himself. This was, after all, where the love story became a tragedy. Eurydice's shade yanked back into the realm below. Walt had often wondered if Orpheus had considered that last glimpse worth the price he suffered. With just a little more patience the ending would have been joyous. But then, people only remembered the tragedies. 

Walt became more concerned when Henry did not tease him. It was worse somehow, that maybe Henry had the same fear, that this was unreal. That he too was stuck in the past. 

Henry’s look was serious, watchful, as he joined him at the top of the stairs. He was clearly lost in thought, his expression set in an unreadable mask that not even friendship could decipher.

“Henry?” Walt called out. 

Henry shook his head. _‘Clearing cobwebs’_ Walt’s Grandmother Mary had called it, as they sat staring off into the sunset. A small, sad curl that did nothing to set Walt at ease tipped the corner of his mouth upward. 

“I am not a Eurydice who will disappear on you, Walt.”

_How did he know?_ Walt sighed, running a hand over his face. Thirty-odd years of friendship made Henry uncannily perceptive. Sometimes. 

“And Orpheus was a fool,” Walt replied.

_I am not_ , he wanted to say. _I know everything is still not alright,_ he wanted to say. His brain was over-crowded with things he wanted but mostly he wanted to make this, here and now, okay. It burned like boiled rocks in his gullet to know that was beyond his scope. _I can’t snap my fingers and make it okay._ He knew that, didn’t mean he didn’t _want_ to be able to snap his fingers and make everything alright. 

Whatever was written across his face, and right now he didn’t have the first clue what that was, Henry’s expression became more amused and less sad. 

Walt chalked it up as a win-win. 

“That is a bit harsh, Walt” Henry mused, quiet and thoughtful. “The man did cross into the Underworld to get Eurydice back. It can be a hard thing to never look back. It is not so easy to look only forward when what is behind has such a great hold on the spirit.”

Walt refused to budge. It had nothing to do with self-projection onto an ancient Greek character from mythology who would become famous in classical literature for an epic failure, right? 

Well, maybe it had a _little_ to do with that. 

If he was being honest. 

Walt grimaced, absently rubbing his chin. 

“He was a fool. He should have seen the viper in the grass.”

Henry crossed his arms. “And perhaps Eurydice should not have fallen asleep in the forest. It was not Orpheus' job to keep her safe at all hours of the day,” Henry countered. 

Bitterness cast a deep shadow over his expression. One there was no reasoning with. 

_Oh, oh fuck._ Walt felt his stomach lurch. They were no longer talking about _Eurydice and Orpheus_ as if they ever had been. He should have known that. He could see what was running through Henry’s head right now. 

“Yes, yes it was, you protect what you love.”

“Love is not infallible, Walter, nor can it stop bad things from happening,” Henry said, calm and rational.

“Bad things happen, that is part of life.”

Walt hated that he could be so calm, his own head was buzzing, and wanted to fly in a hundred different directions, but not Henrys’. It was impressive, really and he’d be properly impressed later when he didn’t feel like every word that fell out of his mouth held far more importance than it deserved. 

Walt squished the brim of his hat in his hands as he tried to keep his focus on what they were really talking about here. This wasn’t about two dead lovers, this was about misplaced blame for a truly heinous crime. 

“No, no I guess it’s not infallible, but he could’ve tried harder.”

“So could Eurydice.” 

Walt’s body mirrored Henry, arms crossed over his chest. Eurydice was blameless and that was a hill he was ready to die on. _Orpheus_ was the one who failed twice over. It sat all wrong like a three-legged mule, that Henry couldn’t see it his way. _He_ was the one who failed when he did not see the danger and he failed again when he could not free Eurydice from the Underworld. 

It was possible the metaphor had escaped him and he’d put his foot in his mouth. This whole situation had him wrong-footed, scrambling to get it right. Henry was not Eurydice and Walt was certainly no Orpheus. Only, he kind of was, wasn’t he? He had failed too. Hadn’t _protected_ who he should have. Hadn’t _safeguarded_ what he valued most. It had nothing to do with Henry not being able to look after himself, he could, Walt knew that for a fact. 

It was about _him_ , what good was he, if not for the safekeeping of those he cared about. 

He was the sheriff, it was his duty to do those things. 

Walt ran a hand through his hair. He knew it was likely sticking every which way and he was a little rank. Forty-eight hours was a long time to be thinking Henry might be dead. It might have wrecked him, just a little bit, and not in the really good sex kind of way either. 

No, this was the other kind, that twisted around under the skin and just plain hurt. He wasn’t so proud that he couldn’t face up to it. 

“Henry…” Walt said. 

He swallowed, feeling his words out with care. “Eurydice didn’t ask for the snake to sink in his fangs. Eurydice was the victim.”

Henry most definitely did not like that term. The words turned to ashes in his mouth. He knew it was the wrong thing to say the moment the words were out, but then it was too late to retract them. _Dammit_ , Walt thought, seeing Henry become even more closed off. 

Walt couldn’t blame him for it either. Henry wasn’t a victim. Walt didn’t know quite what he was in all this, but calling his best friend a victim didn’t sit right. Maybe it was accurate, and what the usual lingo dictated, but that didn’t mean he had to like it. 

Walt could all but see the thundercloud brewing at the bunching of Henry’s brows and the tight clench of his fist. Henry didn’t counter him though, he didn’t shout, or storm out of the room.

Walt kind of wished he would, if only to save them both at his attempt at finishing this conversation without another faux pas. 

Walt grimaced, mentally berating himself over wordage and the penetrative implications he’d laid out. Survivor. That was the term used with sexual assault cases. Though, he didn’t see Henry giving a shit for either one right then.

Walt stared at the decorative band on his hat, as though it held all the answers as he tried to navigate the conversation. He’d been less tense in the past when he’d had loaded firearms pointed at his head than he was currently.

He should have dropped the damned story is what he should have done. Too late now, in for a penny in for a whole fucking pound. 

Walt chanced a look at Henry. 

The other mans’ thoughts were veiled but he was _listening_. Walt could see the hardness giving way to something newer, almost vulnerable, at Walt’s feeble attempts so he kept talking. 

_It wasn’t your fault,_ he wanted to say but Henry wouldn’t hear that. If Henry was blaming Eurydice, then he was blaming _himself_ , and that wasn’t acceptable to Walt. He didn’t know how to get Henry to see that right now. He could just say so, but if a blunt conversation was what Henry _wanted_ he’d have said, not this classic lit obfuscation. 

Walt mulled over his words. He Fiddled his hat in his hands some more, glad to have something, anything to keep his hands occupied as he thought. 

“How was Eurydice supposed to see the damned thing? Snakes, they don’t go announcing their intentions, you know, they hide, they lie in wait like cowards.”

Walt nodded to himself, flicking a look at Henry who was leaning against the wall, his eyes drilling into him. 

“That’s why there are so many snake allegories in the first place. Trickery, deceit, these are the little devils' wheelhouse.”

Henry sighed. 

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here?” Henry asked. 

It wasn’t a concession but it did put a pin in the discussion and Walt could have kissed him for it. 

He spared a second to wonder if Henry knew how damned badly he was struggling to keep his head right now. Maybe. It was Henry, he usually did. 

Henry’s expression began to crack, giving way to something new. Walt couldn't tell if it was good new or bad new. 

Because he was watching, because he couldn’t stop noticing the details he saw when Henry started shaking. Not much. Just these small tremors that he hid by clenching his hands into fists and stuffing them into the pocket of his blue jacket. But there was a spark in his eyes that had not been present before. 

Walt grinned, chuckling quietly.

“Shakespeare, huh?” he murmured, without expectation of an answer. 

He resisted the urge to reach out, to comfort, because Henry looked about as warm as a block of ice and just as welcoming. So, he didn’t. He kept his hands loose at his sides but allowed his shoulder to knock against the other mans' in that universal _I’m here_ gesture. 

“Henry,” Walt coughed into his hand, clearing his throat, “that’s not actually comforting you know.”

“Hmm, it was not intended to be so.”

It didn’t take a genius to figure out. Henry was dealing with the physiological, and possible physical, aftermath of his kidnapping. The shakes had stopped after a minute or two so Walt didn’t ask any questions. If Henry had wanted him to know he’d have spoken up. But he didn't, and Walt refused to let it bother him just yet. He had fences to mend in his future and this? Right here, right now, was his starting place. Accepting what couldn't be changed and soldiering on. It was his turn to be the unmovable rock Henry could lean against, let the river of his anger, his grief crash against. If he’d only let him in. 

At that moment the only thing Walt could offer was this. Being at Henry’s side, shoulder to shoulder, saying nothing at all. Henry wasn’t pulling away, he wasn’t putting distance between them. Walt wouldn’t stop him if he tried. But the point was, he wasn’t trying to put up a wall. Walt took heart in that. 

It was a small, simple gesture, it spoke without him needing to open his mouth and break the comfortable silence as it dragged on. Walt and Henry took in the light coming in through the open window, letting the world outside this moment wait a while longer. 

It wasn’t a time for words yet so Walt said nothing, settling into place. He couldn’t snap his fingers and make it okay but this was something he could do. Walt knew, in his very bones, it was not so simple. Exorcising the ghosts that haunted Henry. Damned, if only it were that easy to do. He’d be clicking so damn hard. But he’s got a need and it rode him hard. To make things right, to fix what’s been damaged. To do something -- _anything_.

He’d be the first to admit he wasn’t great at sitting around with his thoughts turning him in circles. It cut him up inside seeing someone he cared about hurting like this. To see _Henry_ hurt in this way was inconceivable.

Henry didn’t wear it on his face as such, and the marks on his body would heal, bruises fading back into unblemished skin. He was far too reserved for it to be shown too openly. But it was there if a person knew to look. It was in the particulars that made up the man. 

Walt was concerned by what he saw. A deep, abiding wound that made Henry’s hands shake at random intervals. It even had him flinching from contact -- if only for a moment before Henry regained control of himself. Walt didn’t like it at all. So he stayed where he was, close as Henry would let him. Close as he wanted him, even, because it was the one thing he did have to offer. For all the good it did he’d give Henry this, his presence, and his time. The solid weight of friendship spanning the years had to be worth something.

Maybe it eased the hurt in his own chest, too, but that didn’t matter so much. Even if Some of that driving needed shouting at him to fix things had subsided. He was _doing_ something. It wasn’t much, but it was all he knew to offer. Him being here, ready and willing to wait for today, tomorrow, the day after until Henry didn’t need him to. 

Henry didn’t feel much like speaking, that was clear enough to see, so Walt let the quietness continue. He had no complaints. It was warm inside, away from the winter chill, and he had his best friend at his side. He could wait. He had all the time in the world. And nowhere better to be. 


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walt dragged a chair over in front of the small cell and slammed it down across from Holden. From his peripheral line of sight Walt saw Henry wince, startling badly at the sudden, loud noise. 
> 
> Walt cursed under his breath. Barely thirty minutes in and he’d already screwed up. _Loud noises, bad,_ he reminded himself. He wanted to bang his head into a wall for being so stupid. Given that it would only call more attention to his misstep he didn’t. _Henry shouldn’t be here for this,_ he thought to himself, _he shouldn’t be here at all._

_Sheriff's Department:_

Walt heard the door swing open with deliberate loudness and cold air blasting inside. Henry shuffled closer, his arms wrapping more tightly around himself. An instinctive reaction to the noise, or the cold? Walt made a note to find the answer later. It’d be a hell of a trick, keeping Henry from getting cold in that small room above the bar. For all the amenities available at the bar, insulation was lousy in Henry’s living space. Last he checked _Milton’s_ had a sale on, blankets at half price. Walt made a mental note to see about that later. Henry was too damn spartan about his personal amenities sometimes and this wasn’t a time to indulge it. After work, he’d stop by and pick up a few things while he was there, grab some food while he was at it. 

Henry’s face didn’t reveal anything but he’d moved closer, their elbows gently knocking. Walt didn’t let on that he’d noticed. Henry was certain to pull away if he made a fuss. Walt suspected it was a subconscious gesture born of habit. 

It was possible Henry was simply jumpy about sudden noises which were not unexpected changes after what he’d experienced. Walt was happy regardless. Henry wasn’t actively withdrawing from him or his touch. Nine times out of ten victims of sexual assault walked away with an aversion to touching of any sort. 

Henry hadn’t flinched when he’d hugged him outside or when he’d reached for his hand behind the closed doors. That was a big deal and Walt was smart enough to know it. 

Walt resisted the urge to lean, even a little, into Henry. It had to be done on Henry’s terms or not at all from here on out. But that was okay, this was more than enough. Besides, it was going to be a while before the _‘Henry isn’t dead’_ high he was riding faded. He’d give it a week, at least. 

Walt had wondered what was holding up Ferg, just not enough to investigate. He told himself it was because it was cold as a witches tit out there on the steps. He’d rather warm his lazy ass inside the station where he wasn’t liable to freeze his balls off. But that was a bald-faced lie. At least, in part. 

It wasn’t the _station_ or fantastic heating ventilation Walt didn’t want to leave. The protective instincts shooting through him wouldn’t allow him to budge from his spot. Henry was holding himself rigidly tall, breathing so quiet Walt could barely hear it as he locked down whatever was going through his head. 

_Overcompensating,_ Walt knew. Henry would have to be hurting awful bad to look this utterly desolate, he ached to see it. 

Walt leaned back against the wall, hands bunching the brim of his hat. 

“Okay, are you two done with your very private, best friend’s only powwow?” Omar called out from the ground floor. He loudly stomped his boots on each step to announce his arrival like a cheeky chaperone, following a courting pair. Walt didn’t know what to make of that so he ignored it.

Walt’s breathing became as slow and practiced as Henry’s without him even trying. He cleared his throat to speak past the lump that had been lodged there for the past while, bottling up his words. 

“Omar,” he said in greeting, quiet and even-toned. 

“Ferg’s perp is coming to Longmire, and if I have to listen to ‘em bitch and whine any longer about frostbite I’m going to have to break his nose.”

“Or you know, I could,” he said, grinning. There was a sharp cast to the lines of his mouth that made Omar look positively dangerous. It was in the hard cut of his eyes when he spoke of Holden that gave away his intentions. He wanted to hurt Holden, and he wanted it badly.

Walt met the other mans’ eyes and shook his head in refusal. “No Omar, you can’t break Holden’s nose,” he said, carefully enunciating each word. “That would be _illegal_ and then I would be forced to arrest you for assault,” Walt said pointing at the other man as he straightened from his lazy slouch against the wall. “Don’t make me arrest you today.”

Omar threw up his hands in a dramatic show of acceptance, his eyes shining darkly. 

“Okay, okay, Walt I’ll be a good boy,” he muttered. “But if you change your mind, the offer still stands.”

Walt nodded, forcefully slapping his hat back onto his head. 

“Duly noted.”

“Are you absolutely sure the asshole can’t trip on the steps a few times?” Omar asked, not ready to let the subject go. “I mean, it’s winter, they’re slippery as hell right now, it would be very easy to do you know.”

Walt did not even merit that with a response, tilting his head back towards the ceiling as though asking the Creator for patience. His own was beginning to wear thin like an old coat riddled with bullet holes which have been sown over one too many times. 

Walt was hyper-aware of Henry right now so he saw it when Henry’s expression shuttered completely like a house with all the lights blown out. His face became colder than Walt had ever seen as his hands curled into fists where they rested at his armpits. 

Henry’s head was tipped low, tucked to his chest, and he made not a sound. Henry was not a loud man, in general, but this stillness unnerved Walt and he couldn’t place why. Only that he didn’t like it. Walt knew what had been the cause and wished that Holden _would_ trip on the steps a few times. It’d go a ways towards satisfying the need for retribution that he couldn’t shake. 

Walt grimaced, reigning in his darker impulses, enacting such petty reprisals would be illegal. He had two deputies with bright futures to consider, so he didn’t. Holden was lucky it wasn’t him and Omar overseeing his welcome to the Sheriff departments jail. 

Walt’s restraint had worn thin. 

Omar and Henry shared a private look that flew over Walts’ head and he didn’t like it. Feeling like he’d been left out of the loop in his own damn station. 

He supposed this was what it felt like to be on the other side of it, it stung a little, but he put it aside. 

A comfortableness had formed between the two men. One that had never existed before. Walt didn’t know what to make of it. An unpleasant stab of jealousy rose to the surface like black ink seeping from a cracked pen. Walt viciously stamped it down as he unobtrusively watched the exchange. 

Omar’s gaze was steady, locked onto Henry who slowly lifted his own eyes from his current floor gazing. 

Henry shrugged in response, a wry smile beginning to lift the corner of his mouth as he cast his eyes over toward Omar knowingly. 

“I admit it is not a good way to die.” 

“Heh. He’s just soft. Damn city-boy,” Omar grunted. 

“I don’t recall _you_ bitching like him, Henry, and he ain’t even got hypothermia. No, that asshole wouldn’t catch frostbite, isn’t cold enough. Look, the sun's shining and everything.” 

Omar scowled, stamping the snow off of his boots. 

“Not that I give a shit, one way or the other.” Omar frowned, mulish, and grumpy in the bright morning light. “Hope his dick falls off --” he muttered, flicking dirt from his fingernails. 

Walt’s head snapped up, pinning the other man in place with a sharp look. “What’s that?” Walt demanded, his voice tight, a pinched look creasing the lines of his face.

“I hope his fingers fall off,” Omar repeated, his wide-legged stance and sharp-edged smile daring Walt to call him out. Walt grimaced, his gaze skittering towards the stairs Holden would be walking up soon.

_Omar knows,_ Walt thought, casting a furtive look at Henry beside him who was still unreadable. There was a story to be found between the lines of what was said, that was for certain. _Dammit, hypothermia?_ Walt wanted to ask as his eyes widened, sparking with curiosity, his head turning from one man to the other. 

He made a mental note to ask later but was content to stand by the sidelines and watch, biding his time. 

The tension was slowly easing out of Henry’s posture, he leaned more into Walt and the structure at his back, whereas before he’d been holding himself tall and unbending, eyes tipped downward. Walt hadn’t fully realized how tightly wound Henry had been until the tension was gone. 

It was an uncomfortable thought for Walt. Realizing that while he’d holed up in his cozy, well-heated office the other night Henry had been out in the cold, God knew where tussling with issues of living-and-dying. Hypothermia, he well knew, was nothing to sneeze at. 

“Now, what were you two jawing about anyways?” Omar asked. 

Walt wondered if the man was fishing and had been standing at the stairs longer than Walt realized. Not that it mattered a whole lot, really. It was the bright side of speaking in literary metaphors. 

No one ever had a fucking clue without context. 

Henry shared a look with Walt who shrugged, his earlier upset at being left out all but canceled, as they had their own private conversation. 

A head tilt, eyebrow twitch, a faint nod, and they were on the same page.

Having a best friend was fun, times like this. 

He didn’t even need to speak, which was a plus.

“Eurydice and Orpheus,” Henry said. He was completely straight-faced, the ghost of a smile turning up the corners of his mouth. Walt’s eyes lingered on the gentler curve of Henry’s mouth before tearing his gaze away. 

Omar rolled his eyes. 

“You two are bat-shit weird.” 

“It’s a Greek myth,” Walt started to explain when Omar cut him off with a snort. He scratched his bread, grinning wide enough that his white teeth showed. 

“Hell, Walt, I know what it is. I do read shit other than guns and ammo. Well, sometimes.” 

Henry’s eyebrow disappeared into his hairline as though in silent disbelief. 

“Hmm.” 

Omar jumped to the bait exactly as Walt had known he would. It surprised him a little that Henry had too. Maybe it shouldn't have, they’d know each other for a while. 

“Hey! I’ll have you know I have read classic shit, I’ve read Frankenstein.” 

“Alright.” 

That was it, that was all Henry said but Omar just scowled harder. Lines popped up at his forehead and the corner of his eyes, as he mumbled under his breath. 

“Ingrate,” he said. 

Walt studied the hunter, his shoulders were loose and his hands weren’t fisted, and his eyes were twinkling.

He was having _fun_. 

Henry tilted his head to the side, appraising. 

_Oh, well damn,_ Walt thought. He knew that look. He had been on the receiving end of _That Look_ before. The strange truce that had formed between the men was still in place. This was all a game.

“That _is_ a big word.” 

Omar grumbled wordlessly, but it was obvious he was fighting to wipe the grin off his face as the two men snarked at one another like children at the playground. 

“You smug son of a bitch,” Omar grunted. “Hey, how’s your Mandarin, Bear?” 

Omar grinned like he didn’t know Henry’s propensity for picking up random languages when he was bored. Walt snorted, considering that Omar probably _didn’t_ know that about Henry. 

Not many people did. 

Chuffing under his breath Walt settled into his spot to watch the fireworks. 

This was going to be good. 

Omar gave his biggest shit-eating grin, clearly feeling proud. 

_“Tsao Ni Zhu Zhong Shi Ba Dai!”_

Henry paused, and this time his smile was brighter. 

Walt observed them both, noting how Henry had unfolded his arms, letting them rest on his hips, a finger looped in his belt. He was enjoying himself with Omar’s diversion. 

A fond smile eased across Walt’s face as he watched them.

“Rusty,” Henry admitted. 

“ _Fuck all your family for generations past_ , really?” he asked.

Omar blinked his mouth doing a good impression of catching flies. 

Walt resisted the temptation to tease the man for his open-mouthed shock. He was genuinely curious to see who would come out on top in this verbal sparring. Walt smirked, Henry tended to end up on top in a lot of things, and a lot of ways, after all. 

Omar struggled for a moment, his eyes squinting as he tried to find a properly insulting comeback. 

“Ah, hell... _hau ab?”_

“ _Nein, danke_. That was not very inventive, Omar.” 

“Oh, bite my white ass.” 

Henry’s nose crinkled in distaste. “I believe I will pass.”

Omar shook his head, turning to Walt. 

“Henry knows German?” 

Walt shrugged, quiet laughter breaking out. “Ja.”

Henry smirked, explaining to Omar. “He just said yes.”

Walt shot him a look and Henry shrugged back, his teeth showing in a very wolfish grin that Walt had not seen on him in some time. 

_Henry_ was having fun, too.

Omar threw up his hands in surrender. 

“Erudites, I’m surrounded by pretentious erudites!” 

Walt could see he didn’t mean it. Omar's calculating look and the amused uptick of his lips, however, said the man had been in on the game from the start. If that wasn’t enough the twinkle in his pale grey eyes gave it away. 

Walt didn’t know what to make of this new facet to Omar and Henry’s association so he just let it be and told the small, petty voice inside him to _shut-up_. 

Henry could have other friends. Hell, he ought to be happy, they weren’t sniping at each other anymore. It used to drive him nuts at the bar. _Besides_ , Walt reasoned keeping his jealousy in check, _it wasn’t like Henry and Omar are more than friends. Small mercies for that._

Henry was a free man, able to do and see, who he pleased. Walt could name five good looking ladies that would happily hop into Henry’s bed and all he’d have to do was crook his finger and smile. 

Gone where the days of expecting his friend to always be exactly where he was supposed to. That had been a dumb thing to do from the start when Walt knew for a fact that Henry was only unattached because that was how he wanted it. 

Ferg’s head popped around the corner, apologetic and red-nosed. “I’m sorry, sheriff, I was trying to give Mr. Standing Bear and you a minute but it’s really, really cold out there,” Ferg explained as he trudged up the stairs pushing Holden ahead of him. 

Walt appreciated the consideration. He could see the snow was crusted to his deputies boots and the wind-burn redness of his cheeks. Ferg was a good kid, he’d make himself into a fine deputy. Walt hoped Ferg could hold on to some of that softness he possessed. Doing this job had a way of winnowing a person down to hard edges and a dim outlook on humanity.

“That’s alright Ferg,” Walt said. Ferg turned the key on the jail cell, the metallic _click_ loud in the sudden quiet as his deputy locked Holden up behind bars. “Oh, uh, you did well out there with Mrs. Hampton,” Walt said before he forgot. Ferg had done well, he deserved to know it. 

“Thanks,” Ferg said, his eyes lighting up. 

Walt nodded curtly and turned to size up Holden, just staring him in the face, eye to eye. Holden folded like a stack of cards, his eyes dropping to star off the the side unable to hold Walt's piercing look. He decided for Holden's sake it it would be best if he remained behind iron bars during the questioning.

Walt dragged a chair over in front of the small cell and slammed it down across from Holden. From his peripheral line of sight, Walt noticed it when Henry winced, startling badly at the sudden, loud noise. 

Walt cursed under his breath. Barely thirty minutes in and he’d already screwed up. _Loud noises, bad_ , he reminded himself. He wanted to bang his head into a wall for being so stupid. Given that it would only call more attention to his misstep he didn’t. _Henry shouldn’t be here for this,_ he thought to himself, _he shouldn’t be here at all_. Walt didn’t know a whole hell of a lot about what happened or how to help his friend but he didn’t imagine that being in the same room as his rapist was a good idea. 

He glanced over at Henry, stiff as a board, and blank-faced and considered that maybe he was the one he needed to talk to first anyhow. He couldn’t keep putting it off, that would only make things worse in the end. Doing it that way would give Holden time to stew for a while, sweat over the consequences of his actions in the jail while they talked. The young man hadn’t even asked for a lawyer yet, so he figured he had a little time yet. On the other hand, getting more than two words out of Henry right now was questionable at best. He’d clammed up the moment Holden walked in with Ferg who had made himself as inconspicuous as possible without turning invisible. 

Walt was conflicted between two desires. His wish to protect Henry, and his obligation to question him.

Walt knew he needed to talk to Henry. He was the one who’d been sexually assaulted and kidnapped by this man. Assuming Walt could bleed out some of the tension riding Henry so they could have the discussion that needed to happen for this to proceed. Dammit, he didn’t want to force the man into talking about something he clearly didn’t want to but as the sheriff, it was his job. He needed to hear it in Henry’s own words to take this further.

Walt swallowed past a throat that was suddenly parched. 

He wanted a drink. Henry looked like he could use a drink. Walt regretted that the only thing available in the office was bad coffee. If ever there was cause to break out the strong stuff this would have been it. 


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He might be conflicted by two desires but Walt knew which of the two was stronger. There was only one choice that mattered, in the end. If Henry decided he wanted to press sexual assault charges against his kidnappers Walt had the evidence to prove his testimony. If Henry didn’t want to press sexual assault charges the laptop would disappear. Walt had the power to make that happen. 
> 
> Whatever Henry _wanted_ , that was what he would do.

_Sheriff's Department:_

“I could use a drink,” Henry said, his voice snapping Walt from his internal debate. Walt chuckled. 

“Took the words right out of my mouth.” He shifted on his feet, wishing all the more he had something better than bad coffee to offer Henry. “Sorry, Henry. I’m afraid I don’t exactly have the good stuff on hand.”

“That is a shame.”

“Henry, um,” Walt dithered. He had never in his life _dithered_ but he was doing it now, dammit. 

They needed to talk.

It wasn’t about him sticking his nose in Henry’s business as a friend or a lover. As the sheriff he needed to know what happened out at _Penrose_ before this thing got out of his control. He never knew when the local news hounds got their noses into his business. The very idea of this becoming a media splash chilled his blood. That kind of shit was the last thing Henry needed. 

To keep that from happening he needed to get out in front of this. But to do that he and Henry needed to have a proper sit down. About what happened. the kidnapping, and the rape. Walt resisted the urge to shudder. It was inconceivable, still, that it had happened to his friend. 

Walt jerked his head towards his office. “A word?”

Omar pulled out a chair. He seated himself directly across from the baby-faced suspect who was looking back at him, pale, and all wide eyed, like the hunter was a big ol’ wolf that was sizing him up for dinner. 

To be fair, he was. 

Walt had no genuine objection with silent intimidation that didn’t cross any incriminating lines.

He left them to their staring match with a warning look to Omar. 

The other man's response wasn’t promising but Walt had bigger fish to fry. He left the young man to fend off the older hunter alone. Walt didn’t look to see if Henry followed him to the office; he didn’t need to. 

Walt was confident Henry would follow. Sixty-percent, no, fifty-percent sure that he would. Walt was gratified to be proven right. Henry shut the door firmly behind them and proceeded to stand, awkward, and uncertain in a way he’d never been when in this office. It unnerved Walt, seeing that so much had changed already without a single word exchanged between them. Walt sat down behind his desk and quietly watched Henry follow suit, sitting straight backed and stiff in the chair access from Walt’s large desk. 

Walt winced to have been the cause of his discomfort. It was the last thing he'd wanted. 

It couldn't be helped, but still. 

“Can I get you something, coffee maybe?” 

Walt waited, calm and level headed even as he knew he was prepared to bend over backward to make Henry feel comfortable. If there was something he could do, he’d do it. It would have alarmed him, the extent he was willing to go, if it wasn’t something he’d made peace with a long time, and many years ago. 

Henry fidgeted with his shirt sleeve and it did not escape Walt’s notice. He’d never in all their years known Henry to be the fidgety type. Henry knew better than Walt how to be still, to be quiet. Henry could become so very quiet that game would prance right past him without ever knowing. For all his nervous energy Henry kept his chin up where he was seated across from him, divided by Walt’s desk. There was a challenge in his eyes, too. He knew what Walt had asked him in here for, and it wasn’t to offer coffee. 

He was going to make him say it, wasn’t he? Yeah, he sure was. Still Henry, after all. 

“It’s no trouble,” Walt added, just to fill the silence. 

“Sure, Walt. I will have a coffee.”

Walt nodded, not sure if he should be pleased or concerned that Henry had taken him up on his offer. He was following the playbook even if this situation was outside the usual scripting. It sure didn’t prepare him for interviewing his best friend and some-time lover who’d been kidnapped and sexually assaulted. Still, he was the one who had to do the asking. He knew neither Vic or Ferg would get anywhere with Henry when he locked down like this. 

Hell, he might not either. He had to try, so he played it straight: give him space and control over this situation, _don’t_ interrogate, _don’t_ start without addressing the victims needs and comforts. A few do’s and don’ts that had been handed down by the handbook. Walt mentally flinched. He hated thinking of Henry like that; as a victim. It felt wrong. Even in his head it felt wrong but it was the truth. Henry was the victim, this had been done to him, there were no two ways about that. Not when he could see the deep abrasions encircling Henry’s wrists and the hint of bite mark just below his left ear. 

Fact was, offering coffee was him trying to do things by the book and to give Henry a second to get comfortable, maybe lose some of that tension winding him up. Walt still knew how Henry thought and this was little more than a distraction to the other man. A way of putting off the conversation they’d come in here for. 

“Ruby!” Walt called out and in seconds her brunette curls peeped into the room, “would you please get Henry some coffee, thank you.”

Ruby nodded looking past him to Henry. “Still take two sugars, Henry?” 

He watched, pleased to note the faint crinkle at the corner of Henry’s eyes as a small, wistful smile eased the hard cast of his face. 

“Yes, that would be nice. Thank you, Ruby.” 

As quick as she stepped inside Ruby left with the faint hint of her modest heels clicking against the floor. They were alone once more, nothing but the long silence stretching out as each of them tried to figure out how to move forward. Or in Henry’s case, studiously avoiding saying anything at all. 

_To hell with the playbook,_ Walt decided. Coffee wouldn't magically change this whole situation. Walt charged forward, full tilt, into the conversation laying down his cards and ready to show his hand, too. Henry wasn’t a stranger and approaching this like he was wasn’t going to work out well for either of them, better to face that right now. 

“Henry, I have one suspect dead and the other behind bars in my jail. To keep him there, to put him away for a very long time? I need you to tell me what happened,” Walt said, laying out the facts, plain and blunt. Henry would appreciate the honesty. 

Henry’s breathed, hitched, a small almost inaudible sound. The way his cheeks reddened, it hadn’t been intentional. Sparing him further embarrassment, Walt ignored it. 

“Now, I know this isn’t easy, and you probably don’t want to talk about it,” Walt said, “but Henry, we need to.”

Walt leaned back in his chair, taking in every small micro expression, the way Henry was bouncing his leg, just a little, and the strained look that was back on his face. He looked pale, as pale as he’d ever get anyhow, and now his chin wasn’t so high. Dammit. Henry was looking at the floor and Walt could hear the beginning of his heart breaking clean in two, glass bits stabbing his gut. 

He swallowed wishing he could just swallow up these past weeks and go back to that night at the _Red Pony_ with Henry asleep at his side. He would have never left if he could go back. He’d have stayed. Martha had been right. He took so long going about these things that, sometimes the moments slipped right under his nose and were gone and there was no going back.

“I understand not wanting to talk, you know that. Just tell me about the night you were kidnapped for a place to start. Like, did you notice either Mr. Holden or Mr. Smithson at the bar?” Walt asked, hoping if he opened the door Henry would do the rest on his own.

Henry jerked, startled, before his expression smoothed out, a burnished glass surface with faints cracks fissuring at the middle. 

“Mr. Holden” he said, purposefully and slow, his tone hard enough to cut, “and Mr. Smithson.”

“I suppose I must have known they had names beyond Mitch and Trig.”

“The dead man’s name is Hector Smithson. The man you know as Mitch was born Michell Alexander Holden. He is the one in the jail right now,” Walt explained. 

What a newbie mistake, he wanted to kick himself. Of course Henry didn't know their real names. It’s not like they met over a coffee date, or luncheon. Henry was kidnapped and assaulted, it wasn't as though the suspects stopped to do proper introductions.

“Yes, I noticed...Mr. Holden at the bar he was harassing the staff.”

“Okay, just the staff or the customers, too?”

“No, no, I suspect he was interested in -- in an exotic experience to write home about,” Henry’s eyes flicked up, shrugging, “if you know what I mean.”

Walt understood and Henry could see that clear on his face. There were always the kind who wanted to sleep with a Cheyenne woman, or man apparently, so they could brag to their friends about _‘poking a Pocahontas.’_ Walt had first met those kinds in high school often enough to know the look, so had Henry. It disgusted him that people would go after someone purely because of their race.

Henry sighed, his head tilting back to stare at the ceiling. 

  
  


“He harassed Amy White Feather and a few of the other women before I ejected him from the bar. As the proprietor I have that lawful right and he had become...agitated and more loudly racist towards the women.”

“I understand, so you did what?”

Henry snorted. “In the interest of not losing customers or risking the wellbeing of my staff I escorted him out.”

“Amy White Feather said you two got into a fight?” Walt asked, clarifying, to be certain the two stories would match seamlessly later on down the road.

“She is correct, we did fight and afterwards I escorted Mr. Holden from the bar to the street. He was not drunk and I did not see the need to call him a cab nor was I obligated to.”

Walt pursed his lips, Henry’s sharp tone had not escaped him. “Henry, you do know you're not -- you're not the guilty party here, right? That’s not what these questions are about. I’m not blaming you.”

Walt frowned, leaning forward. “I’m not blaming you for anything, okay.”

Henry took a deep breath, nodding. 

“I am sorry, Walt, continue.”

“Don’t be sorry, nothing to be sorry for,” Walt said, flicking through the notes he had on Henry’s case and Amy White Feather’s testimony. 

Walt carried on where he’d left off, same as before this wasn’t the time or place for the longer version of that conversation. 

“But that wasn’t the last you saw of him?”

Henry crossed his arms, his face still turned to the side, staring somewhere past Walt’s shoulder. 

Just when he was about to call Ruby about that coffee she popped in a lovely, red-lipped angel of grace, stripping back some of the tension thick in the air with a motherly pat to Henry’s arm and a fond smile as she handed the man a hot mug of coffee. 

Piping hot off the brewer stream curled into the air as Henry blew into his cup before taking a slow mouthful of his drink. 

“It is good.”

“No it really isn’t, but it beats water.”

Henry quietly _hu-mmed_ neither assenting nor contesting his statement. He continued to sip at his drink but said nothing further on the matter. 

Walt let it drop, his eyes drawn to the purple bruises more visible now that Henry was holding a coffee mug. Whatever he’d been restrained with had gouged through the top layer of skin, rope didn’t have that kind of edging, some kind of metal, perhaps?

Apropos of nothing Henry responded to the question Walt hadn’t verbalized having noticed the direction of his gaze. 

“It was a police restraint, Walter. Very much like the ones I know you have on your person right now.”

Walt thought of the restraints, the ones he always carried, and felt his stomach flop, twisting sharp and ugly.

“What…”

Henry held up his right hand, shaking back his shirt sleeve to reveal a matching brand. “These marks.”

“Mitch -- no, _Mr. Holden_ used rope at first but when I came to my senses the second time I was wearing these. That was my first mistake.” 

Henry did not elaborate and Walt didn’t press, even if the story had jumped further ahead than he’d been expecting it to. There was such a look on Henry's face, something dark, something hurting, and it killed Walt that this couldn't end here and now. He wanted to let it die with the dead man in the street. 

“Okay, so you escorted Mr. Holden from the bar, what then?” Walt asked. 

“Then nothing, everything seemed normal.” Henry continued speaking, calm, and perfunctory, sounding very, very far removed. He wasn’t though and Walt knew it; Henry only shut down this hard when he was masking a deeper hurt.

This knowing a person for a lifetime shtick came with it’s little perks. Henry was not as unmoved as he’d have Walt think he was. Pointing that out would serve no purpose but to press on open wounds. Walt kept his thoughts to himself, learning forward as Henry began speaking again.

“I was taking out the trash, something I do every night. It could have waited…” Henry rubbed a hand over his face, “I cannot believe how stupid this all is.”

“Hey, hey,” Walt said, getting out of his chair to move closer to Henry. His hand hesitated before he decided, hell with it, and put it on his friend’s shoulder. 

He knew he shouldn’t, the playbook advised against unsolicited contact with a sexual assault victim but nothing about this case was usual. He couldn’t sit around on his ass and watch as Henry's shoulders shook, a faint tremble working its way through his slim frame. 

On top of everything else Walt noted that he’d lost weight, too. Another thing he could blame the assholes for. He was definitely picking up groceries from _Milton's_ after work. Henry didn’t need to bother with that shit right now. 

The moment passed with Henry reigning himself in quickly; he’d always been too damn hard on himself in Walt’s opinion. Henry didn’t shake him off so Walt kept his hand where it was. It did them both good. 

Henry calmed and Walt could remind himself that so long as he had this, Henry real and living, they would be alright. Eventually. 

“All of this was because he wanted in my pants -- I mean, really?” Henry chuffed, “what a lot of trouble for sex he could have had with almost anyone else at the bar. He was not bad looking. I was simply not interested.” 

Walt rolled through all the possible things he could say against what he should say and decided the truth was always best with Henry. “You know as well as I do that sex is not the same as _rape_ and -- and that’s what this was.”

Walt held his breath, waiting. 

Henry inhaled sharply, his eyes widening as Walt finally said it, what’d they been dancing around _not saying,_ the elephant in the room, since they stepped into Walt’s office with its firmly shut door. 

Now it was out there in the open and the elephant wasn’t silent anymore. It was tap dancing a tune so loud Walt could feel it. No, that was his heart, pounding in his chest wasn’t it? Walt swallowed past a throat that felt parched and a mouth as dry as the Sahara. 

“Just remember that whatever kind of stupid this is -- its on _them_ , alright? It’s on that asshole I have locked up.” 

Henry drew in a deep breath and Walt could feel the movement through the hand still resting on his friend’s shoulder.

“Why then do I feel as if I did something wrong?” Henry asked, pent up frustration and anger bleeding through his tough-guy mask of indifference. 

“That’s just them getting in your head and under your skin,” Walt promised. “This feeling you got isn’t about anything you did or didn’t do, Henry.”

Henry laughed, bitter. 

“Under my skin, eh?” he mimicked, his eyes tightly closed. “Yes, I suppose you could say that they were ‘under my skin.’”

Henry’s hands were white knuckling the chair he sat in, bloodless and pale, nails digging deep enough Walt was sure there would be indents to mark the occasion. 

“Do you know what they did to me, your Mr. Holden and the dead man in the street who I knew only as Trig?” Henry asked, his voice a hoarse whisper. 

“Within the first hour of being their captive I was beaten and fucked. Repeatedly, Walt. By _both_ of them, one after the other, taking turns holding me down. I tried, I really…” Henry chanced a look at Walt, and the stark compassion he saw there quieted his stream of words.

“I am going to become sick,” he whispered. “I cannot do this.”

Henry stopped talking all together, his hand over his mouth.

Walt blanched as he processed Henry’s words. _Fuck._ He’d thought he could handle hearing this better. Maybe he should have called in one of the others. No. No this was his job, it was his job to make this process easier not fuck it up because his heart was bleeding; this was not about him. Henry was hurting badly over this, as anyone rightfully would be. 

It was his job to try making this easier and he was failing Henry.

“Okay, that’s just fine we can take a break, alright?”

Walt clamped his mouth shut. _Shit_. That wasn’t patronizing at all. Henry shot him a dirty look and his eyes narrowed. Never missed a thing, did he, even now. 

“Hold on, now” Walt said, trying again. 

Strike, two. 

Henry didn’t seem to have heard him and if he did he definitely wasn’t in the mood to listen. He was already out of his seat with his hand on the door as he shook his head in mute refusal. 

“I cannot do this right now.”

“Henry, wait!” Walt shouted, rushing after him but he was already out of the office and down the steps. Walt turned the corner to see Omar already getting to his feet. 

Walt frowned, it felt like deepest treachery but he admitted to Omar. “He’s -- he’s not always as tough as he thinks he is. Can you?”

“I’m on it, Walt.” 

Omar jogged down the steps as he chased after Henry.

Walt hoped Omar caught up to Henry before he vanished into the town. Henry had a knack for doing that when the mood stuck, vanishing like a trail of smoke. Walt didn’t think his blood pressure could take Henry disappearing like that just now.

Walt shut himself away his office, closing the door behind him as he sat in his chair with his hands steepled. He took a moment to collect himself and his runaway thoughts. While that could have gone better, it could have gone worse, too. If there was one thing he had learned it was that it would always get worse. 

He’d gotten verbal confirmation on the sexual assault and kidnapping and both suspects had been incriminated in each crime. Walt would give Henry an hour to cool down, collect himself, and then he’d go searching for him. This needed to be resolved and the sooner the better. If Henry wanted to press charges Walt needed to know that right now.

He needed to know what it was _Henry_ wanted to do about this situation. Though, from the look of him sitting across from the desk locked down tighter than _Alcatraz_ , Henry probably just wanted to forget it ever happened. 

Walt didn’t blame him, not one bit. His mind flashed back to the laptop riding shotgun in the front seat of his truck and he wished he could forget, too. He still didn’t know what he was going to do with the laptop, it contained damning evidence against Holden and Smithson regarding the sexual assault but it also had the potential to wreck Henry’s life if it went public.

As the sheriff he knew he should be convincing Henry to press charges against the remaining suspect. But his heart wasn’t in it. It was still stuck on the heartbreaking look of absolute devastation he’d glimpsed on Henry’s face before he walked out of his office.

He might be conflicted by two desires but Walt knew which of the two was stronger. There was only one choice that mattered, in the end. If Henry decided he wanted to press sexual assault charges against his kidnappers Walt had the evidence to prove his testimony. If Henry didn’t want to press sexual assault charges the laptop would disappear. Walt had the power to make that happen. 

Whatever Henry _wanted_ , that was what he would do. 

  
  



	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He was meant to be free. Why did he still feel the tight bind of restraints around his wrists and hot breath at his neck? Freedom felt strange like bonds stretched thin but unbroken. A chain tethered him to ghosts, one living, one dead. 
> 
> He did not know how to remove them from his head. He had no answer so he drank hoping to forget the question.

_The Red Pony Bar & Grill: _

His palms were sweaty and his head was pounding, a rhythmic staccato that pulsed like a heartbeat behind his eyes. Henry had genuinely thought he could handle having _that_ conversation. He had been wrong. 

Walt knowing what had happened as _Penrose_ made it even worse, harder somehow. Like he could see the dirt on him, too. All he could think when he had bolted out of Walt’s office like a frightened rabbit was that he needed space. His feet did the rest as they carried him out of the office and back to the street. 

Henry did not even pause to inspect the bloodstains Trig had left in the snow. He had already seen enough to be satisfied that the man was dead. It was clarity he desired, not the chance to linger on the terrible experiences that the man invoked. Ugliness that scratched and clawed behind his eyes, but he refused to give life to.

He had not found it yet but Henry had not given up the search. He needed a place he could retreat to. Somewhere he could go with solid doors to lock out the world. It did not surprise him to discover that without conscious effort he had found his way home. 

What did surprise him was the sight of Omar Rhodes propped against the door to the _Red Pony_. 

A pinched frown pursing Omar’s lips betrayed the concern his face worked to conceal. 

“Did Walt send you?” Henry asked. 

“I sent me,” Omar gently chided, his frown smoothing out into something less anxious when Henry did not immediately turn and walk away. Although, where exactly did Omar think he could go? This was his home, if he could not go here, he had _nowhere_. 

“Now, that said, our favorite sheriff may have given me his blessing to hare off after his best friend. Make sure he was alright, you know? Seeing as _he_ still has to deal with the asshole in jail.”

Henry sighed rubbing tiredly at his face. “I did not intend to be cause for concern.”

“Too fucking bad. Walt’s concerned, I’m concerned, that what friends do when they find out their friends were kidnapped and raped, okay?” Omar snapped, but for all his bluster his tone was not unkind. 

“They get-”

“Concerned?” Henry offered, finding himself smiling quite against his will at the other man's tenacity. Even if he had not properly decided whether it was _welcome_ or not he appreciated the gesture. 

“Yeah, they do,” Omar said. “Now, you can tell me to fuck off, if you want, but I thought you should know, you’re not alone. Not if you don’t want to be, okay?” Omar shrugged, awkward after his explosion of words.

Henry looked at Omar who looked back, patient, and unhurried. Henry nodded to himself and turned away, his mind made up when he found not a single trace of pity in the other mans’ eyes. It would not be such a terrible thing, to not be alone. 

“Omar, would you like a drink?” Henry asked without looking at the other man as he unlocked the door to his establishment with a steady turn of the spare key he had snagged from its hiding spot. “I find myself wanting one. I would welcome the company.”

“Hell yes, I could definitely use a drink,” Omar agreed, a genuine smile chasing the pinched look of worry from his face. “Especially if it’s on the house.”

Henry chuckled as he moved behind the bar setting down two glasses on the bar top and serving up the promised libations. “It is on the house,” he said, shooting Omar an exasperated look, “just this one time.”

Omar brought the glass to his mouth, swirled it once, before taking a long pull. He set it back down with a content sigh. 

“Good ol’ _Sam Adams_ ,” he murmured, as he flicked a surprised look in Henry's direction. 

“You remembered.”

Henry folded his elbows on the bar, across from Omar and asked, “Why does that surprise you so much?” 

Omar had no real answer for him. 

“Never gave it much thought, I guess.” 

Henry hummed absently his eyes closed in thought as he remembered the orders of a few of his regular customers. “Walt is easy, he is _Rainer’s_ man all the way. You, Omar, prefer _Samuel Adams Boston Lager._ Vic enjoys whiskey on the rocks and anything that stings on the way down. Bob -- Bob will drink any alcohol that can leave him feeling buzzed and happy,” Henry said, a little saddened when he thought of the man. 

It was something of an unfortunate paradox, him running a bar and all, but Henry thought it was a shame Bob never could kick his alcoholism. Bob was the town drunk, but utterly harmless, a generally good-natured man. 

Omar blinked, his wide-eyed startlement told Henry he was surprised he had taken the time to notice so much about them. 

“Maybe Walt really should have made _you_ his deputy, for real, with an eye for detail like that.”

Henry smiled weakly at Omar’s attempt at humor but knew it for a lost cause; whatever expression was on his face did match what hid inside. 

He was meant to be free. Why did he still feel the tight bind of restraints around his wrists and hot breath at his neck? Freedom felt strange like bonds stretched thin but unbroken. A chain tethered him to ghosts, one living, one dead. 

He did not know how to remove them from his head. He had no answer so he drank hoping to forget the question. 

Henry threw back three shots of whiskey in quick succession before slowing. It dulled the sharp edges of his thoughts and made the stinging burn that he could not fully dismiss into something lesser. Henry knew it was not a good method for coping but it would work in the short term. It was good enough, for now. He poured the alcohol and Omar matched him drink for drink until they were both mellow and loose-tongued. 

“Why are you really here, Omar?” Henry finally asked, unable to quell the suspicion that his time with Smithson and Holden had brought to the surface. Omar had to want something. It was the only thing that made sense to Henry right now.

Why else would he be here? They had never been overly friendly in the past. What had changed, other than the _incident_ , between then and now that Omar would seek his company?

Henry closed his eyes and drowned out the ghost of Trig whispering in his ear.

_“_ _Whore,”_ he said, his hand wrapped around Henry’s throat, pressing hard enough that he cut off his air.

_No,_ Henry thought to repress the memory trying to supersede his reality. _Trig is dead and he is never coming back._

Henry pulled back into himself. He attempted to shut down the past's ugly echo; the feel of rough hands grabbing, taking, and himself powerless to stop it. He sank deeper, drowning in the past, until he heard Omar’s voice, like an anchor to the present reaching past the dark. 

“Henry?” Omar called out, grabbing Henry’s forearm across the bar.

Henry didn’t respond, breathing too hard and fast through his nose, his eyes tightly closed. 

Omar’s voice sounded like it came from a great distance, but that was not right, was it? Henry was in his bar, the _Red Pony_ , with Omar Rhodes.

Trig was a corpse decomposing in some morgue. He could never lay hands on him, or anyone else, ever again. 

“C’mon, Bear, snap out of it!” Omar growled, shaking him.

Henry came to and staggered backward, his arm lifted across his face in an act of self-defense before he fully realized where he was and who he was with. 

_I am home_ , Henry thought, _there is no one here but Omar._

Trig was dead, and still, he would not leave him in peace. Henry cursed under his breath, slowing his breathing with a few controlled breathing exercises. 

“Shit, you okay?” Omar asked nothing but worry on his face. 

“Would you believe me if I said I was okay?” Henry asked instead of constructing an answer Omar would not accept as truth. Not after that little scene. 

“No, maybe not.” Omar paused, looking Henry over as though he were trying to make up his mind about something. 

Whatever he was looking for, he found, because he kept talking. 

“You do know you’re not expected to be okay overnight, right? That would be crazy. I know I wouldn’t be, neither would Walt for that matter, if that’s what got you tied in knots.”

“Maybe Walt was right,” Henry snorted. “I am _a Eurydice_. I feel like a half-shadow of myself.”

“Walt, right?” Omar shook his head. “Nope, I don’t believe that, hell, I don’t know most of what you're talking about right now Henry, but you are not _half_ of fucking anything. That much I do know.”

Henry poured them both another drink, quietly thinking, but saying nothing. Omar downed his drink, his glass slamming down hard enough that Henry jumped, a little, at the noise. 

“Don’t let them take anything else,” Omar murmured, his eyes locked on the amber liquid in his glass. “Not a fucking thing, you hear me.”

Henry froze, surprised by the heat driving the other man's words. He believed what he was saying, every word of it, and Henry’s eyes widened. 

“They aren’t worth half of the man you are, and that’s on your worst day.”

“You have not seen me on my worst days,” Henry cautioned, pouring himself another drink. A shot of whiskey for every insult snarled in his ear. Another to fortify his mind against the memories writhing below the surface, trying to break through. 

“No, but Walt has I reckon, and he's still here, isn't he?” Omar shot back with a pointed look. 

“That says everything I need to know. Now, enough of that shit,” Omar rebuked. “I want a proper doctor to take a look at those whip marks on your back. If they scar because I didn’t drag your ass to the hospital it’s _my_ hide Longmire’s going to thrash, wouldn’t want that on your conscience, now, would you?”

Henry sighed, unable to argue with Omar’s reasoning. He did not want scars either. He wanted no physical reminders of the men left behind on his body. Reflections of them written into his skin. 

“I will take a shower, then we can go.”

Henry carefully straightened out and walked towards the room upstairs. The floor was not spinning and he did not fall on his face. He considered that a minor victory and retreated to mend the ragged stitches of himself back together in private. Omar did not need to see the humiliating spill of unwanted tears on his face. Omar had already seen far too much. 

He slowly and methodically stripped away his clothed until he was bare and took a moment to observe the ugliness Mitch and Trig had so meticulously carved into his flesh: the rainbow collage of bruises at his hips and thighs, the bloodied welts cutting across his back, which he had to twist to see in the small bathroom mirror, and the suck marks on his collarbone and neck.

It drew the eye, a vibrant reddish color ringed with purple, edged with ragged teeth impressions.

_What a mess_ , Henry thought dismissively, before stepping beneath the hot shower spray.

Enfolded beneath the watery deluge raining down Henry roughly scrubbed at himself hoping that the feeling of cleanness might stick this time. The pressure of water hitting his skin felt good as it removed sweat, dirt, and the remnants of dried blood.

Each swipe of the soap bar washed away phantom touches and the scorching water burned out the echo of hot breath on his skin.

He was alone.

His rational mind knew that, yet he could not resist throwing a look over his shoulder half-expecting to see Mitch in the corner of the bathroom his eyes dilated with lust and his hand outstretched. 

Henry shook off thoughts of Mitch but could not halt the trembling of his hand where it rested against the white shower wall, or the small broken sounds that escaped. His only consolation was there was no witness to his breaking.

He listened to the rhythmic _thump, thump,_ of water striking the floor, impossibly loud in this small space and felt compelled to leave. Short breathed and light headed Henry shut off the water and toweled off, his skin flushed from the water's high temperature.

He stumbled out of the room, it had suddenly felt too small, too confining to withstand. He took a moment to steady his wild breathing and felt more himself, redressed in his own clothes after so long with nothing, or clothes borrowed from Omar.

Henry frowned at the discarded clothes, swallowing tightly at the small dotting of blood on the boxer briefs lying on the floor. He hastily kicked everything under the bed and turned his back so he would not have to see.

Henry glanced at his reflection in the mirror and resisted the urge to smash it. The smooth outside which stared back did not fit how he felt inside. 

He sighed, leaned into the sink, and counted down in his head until the desire for pointless destruction passed. _He_ may have been wrecked by his experiences but he was determined that his home would remain as it was when he’d left it; _whole_ and unbroken.

Omar was right, he would not let them win. 

They had taken their pound of flesh. Carved it from the canvas of his body, but he would not allow them any more power. _It was done,_ Henry thought, _time to move on._

Omar was sitting at a barstool, swirling the last dregs of his beer when Henry rejoined him at the bar. Omar’s eyes lingered on his face and Henry refused to drop his gaze. He did not have the word _victim_ plastered across his forehead. Its own kind of scarlet letter.

He was certain of that much. He’d cleaned off the small abrasions, the cut at his cheek that Walt had accidentally broken open earlier. He still felt threadbare, stitches shoddy, and half-done, it just did not show as clear at this moment with all his private thoughts neatly packed away in an iron box. 

“Are you suitable to drive?” Henry asked. 

Omar set aside his beer, his feet steady under him when they hit the floor. “Yeah, or close enough anyhow. I didn’t pack in as many as you.”

“Very well,” Henry said, silently following Omar out the door. The man paused, glancing back at him, his mouth quirked in amusement. 

.

“You’re much steadier, I see,” Omar remarked, climbing into his truck. “Quiet as a damned ghost.”

Henry said nothing following suit and buckling himself in. If the unintentional reminder Omar had gifted him with pecked at his spirit like a flock of crows, bitterness bleeding into his veins, no one present could see past the blaise indifference he wore so well. For a brief moment, shining with clarity, his thoughts turned to Walt, and the bitterness congealed in his veins melted into something kinder. 

The memory of a kiss. 

Chaste and as ephemeral as time. 

An act that was over too quick. 

He shut down his train of thought, and he did so with hard precision. What he _wanted_ and what he could _have_ were no longer in alignment. He did not believe what was damaged in him could be so easily mended. The seedlings sown by his own experience had taken root. The specter of what happened at _Penrose_ haunted his waking moments. 

The kiss had been an act of impulsivity. He was not the man he once was. He did not even know if he was the man Omar took him to be, let alone the man Walt had fallen into bed with, in what felt to be a lifetime ago. 

_Walt deserves better_ , Henry thought as he stared blindly out the window. 

  
  
  



	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well, damn, Walt always said you were a mind reader,” Omar snorted, “Heh, looks like I owe him fifty bucks.”
> 
> “He said that about me?” Henry asked, stuck somewhere in the no-man’s land that existed in the liminal space between amused and irritated. “One is required to have a talent for such things if they are to be friends with a man who so often retreats to an inner-world.”
> 
> Omar chuckled. “To be fair, he was a bit drunk at the time.”
> 
> Henry shook his head. “Good night, Omar,” he said bracing for the rain pouring down from the skies. 
> 
> “See you around, chief.”
> 
> Henry groaned and shut the truck door. Maybe with more force than was required. All the same, he took the sound of Omar’s laughter with him all that way into his establishment. It warmed those parts of Henry that had become numb and cold. 

_The Good Samaritan Hospital:_

The truck pulled into the parking lot of _Good Samaritan Hospital_ rolling into an empty slot below the wide branches of an oak tree. Omar unsnapped his belt, his hands drumming along the rim of the wheel, as he worked up to something he wanted to say. Henry noticed the other man mentally bolstering his courage for the last twenty minutes of the drive and quietly waited to see what would come out of his mouth. 

Henry was surprised to discover Omar had a protective streak almost as generous as Walt’s. Even more to find it applied to him. He was not sure how he felt about all that attention directed at _him_ but he recognized that it stemmed from a place of good intent, so he waited. 

“I know you’re sick of talking about this shit, first with Walt, now with me, but I thought you should know,” Omar began, nervously scratching the back of his head. “ _SANE_ medical examiners, um, which means _Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner_ , they can still document the assault. You don’t have to report it, officially, if you don’t want to. They can hold evidence for up to 1 year, in case you change your mind?”

The amount of thought the other man had invested in this subject surprised Henry. _Someone had been doing his homework,_ Henry thought, wishing to have avoided this particular conversation. 

Google had made itself useful at the most inconvenient of times. 

“I already showered, twice, Omar. This is not an advisable action to take if one is looking to press charges in a sexual assault suit.”

“That’s not a definitive no,” Omar hedged. “Look, it’s up to you, I just -- I just thought I’d remind you that it’s still a viable option, forensic science has come a long way.”

Henry resisted the urge to squirm under the other man's scrutiny. His face felt uncomfortably hot, flushed in embarrassment. The cab was suddenly quite small. Confining, even. 

“I appreciate this concern for my...situation. I do. But I am only here to cover basic medical necessities. I think I might have a cracked rib, among other things.”

Omar cursed, slamming his hand against the wheel. “Shit, a cracked rib? Those hurt like a bitch, knew I should have brought you here first.”

Henry resisted the urge to melt into the seat, instinctively wary of the outburst. This was Omar, Walts’ friend, and it was not _him_ the man was mad at. Knowing that did not make the gallop of his heart in his chest stop. 

“You did what I asked you to do Omar, this is hardly your fault,” Henry said, shaking loose the tension that crept into his shoulders as his heart rate spiked. “I am not going to press sexual assault charges,” Henry said, turning to face Omar. 

“There are too many other factors to weigh in. The scales of justice are not blind and while I believe in _Walt_ I lack the same faith in the system at large.”

Omar winced but there was a look of understanding on his face. One that suggested he caught all the implications Henry had not aired. 

“So, what you’re really saying is that your _Cheyenne_ and these boys are pretty, white, college kids with baby-faces a jury will love,” Omar murmured. “And if the defense asks you point-blank on the stand if you’ve ever engaged in _willing_ intercourse with a man you’d have to say yes. Am I getting hot?"

Henry resisted the desire to look away. He was not ashamed. Not of this nor what he had shared with Walt in the past. What he had hoped to share again before _the incident_. 

“You are on fire.”

“Further, if they take a lucky shot in the dark they could end up roping Longmire into this, that’s the _real_ reason isn’t it?” Omar speculated. 

To see Omar unfazed by the admittance of his private relationship with Walt set him at ease. A part of him that had been braced for disgust settled down with the other man's reaction. 

Henry nodded, his face tight with concern for what this could do to Walt’s life, as he answered Omar’s question. “It is an additional factor that I cannot ignore.”

“Does Longmire get a say in this?” Omar asked, his fingers tapping out a tune on his leg. An old habit he did not even realize he was doing Henry surmised. 

“No, he does not.”

“Heh, that’s what I figured. I don’t know that he would go along with this line of reasoning if he knew he was the cause.”

“Walt is a good man who has a daughter and a law enforcement career to consider,” Henry snapped. “He does not need to know all my reasonings. Walt will be satisfied to accept my ‘no’ at face value.”

“Yeah well, that’s because he trusts you, Henry.”

Henry sucked in a sharp breath, as though struck. It was a low blow to accuse him of taking advantage. It was Walt he was protecting in the only way he knew how. “It is my choice and I am choosing to say no,” Henry said firmly. “I ask you to respect my decision in this matter, it is my life we are talking about.”

“Okay,” Omar said, hands up in surrender as he dropped the subject. “I only wanted to make sure you’d thought it through. Right now Walt would shoot his own damn leg rather than chance pushing too hard.”

“Walt is a good man,” Henry said knowing that for him _Walt_ and _good_ would always be intrinsically linked. He was not blind in his regard, his eyes were wide open to see the truth that he coveted. 

“I do not want to drag him into this,” Henry softly said, leaning against the cab door, listening to the distant sound of sirens in the background. 

“Did it occur to you that he might want you to?” Omar asked equally quiet and subdued, both of them watching the snowfall. 

Henry did not answer. Instead, he chose to unsnap the seatbelt and stepped back out into the cold. Omar, thankfully, did not follow. Henry's lips moved in an unspoken answer, but no sound escaped. _Yes, it did occur to me,_ Henry thought his hands tucked into his pockets as he crossed the parking lot to the hospital entrance. 

Not wishing to share Smithson's fate he looked both ways before crossing. Seeing no runaway minivans he grinned with dark humor and proceeded on his way. Omar was correct in his assumptions. Walt was a good man, of course, he would want to help. He always did. It was being a burden, the damsel in distress, that Henry objected to. 

For the time being this was something that had to be done alone. Walt could not fight the ghosts in his head. Only he could silence them, once and for all if only he could figure out how to do it without the numbing agent of alcohol. It was fine, in small doses but it could become a dangerous crutch. He had seen it happen far too many times to be baited into that trap with the promise of an easy out. 

He had no intention of being the new Bob -- needing liquor to make himself happy. 

Henry squared his shoulder and determinedly stepped past the mechanical sliding doors. The smell of antiseptic and the sharp pungent scent of cleaning products blasting him in the face. He surveyed the waiting room. A mother bounced her child on her lap to keep him entertained, a small family grouped to the far left staring blankly at the TV hitched to the wall, and a young man who had secluded himself with a box of tissues for his runny nose. He had blond hair, blue eyes, and aesthetically appealing features. 

Henry froze two steps into the room. _Trig is dead,_ he reminded himself, _and this boy is not him._

The young man noticed his staring and awkwardly offered him the box of tissues he had been hoarding to himself, smiling weakly. The young man had a light dusting of freckles on the bridge of his nose and a softness in his eyes. Nothing about Smithson had been soft. Henry took a breath, forced a smile, and said, “No thank you,” as if nothing had happened. 

Henry walked past the young man who had returned to clutching the tissue box to his chest and accepted a clipboard from the grey-haired woman at the nurses' station. She looked at him, directly meeting his eyes when she passed the clipboard. The wrinkles around the corner of her mouth tightened a fraction becoming a tight, thin line, before smoothing out. He did not know what she saw when she looked at him but it made him uneasy. He was not accustomed to being so easily seen through and he did not like the feeling.

He took a seat a good long distance away from the other occupants, fully aware of the grandmotherly nurse's watchful eyes lightly scanning the visible marks on his face and the tightly controlled manner in which he held himself in his chair. He could not have been clearer about his desire to avoid unnecessary contact with strangers if he had drawn a line in the sand and said _‘here, and no further.’_

Henry did not have to wait long before he was called into a private room. A brightly smiling young nurse with a blond ponytail swinging behind her head with each step led him to a room and informed him the doctor would be in to see him shortly. She had a kind, heart-shaped face, and smelled faintly of lavender beneath the scent of chemical cleaners and hand sanitizer. Henry found himself smiling a little, the first one in a long while it felt, as he watched her go. 

It turned out that shortly would come to mean approximately thirty minutes; which was not bad. He had been forced to wait for longer intervals in the past. It was requested that he wear the thin and unflattering patient gowns, a paper-thin fabric of some pale glue color that brushed against the top of his knees. He had reluctantly donned the referred clothes, preferring to change now than by necessity later. 

He sat on the hospital bed, the thin paper laid out over it crinkling whenever he shifted. It sounded ominously loud in the relative quiet of the room. With each second that ticked by the tension coiling in his belly ratcheted up another notch. He wanted to put back on his clothes and leave. He could hear the _click-click_ of heels as assistants hurried by and the softer impact of rubber shoes as nurses bustled through the hall. 

Somewhere, probably the next room over, a child cried and a mother shushed, “Just a small pinch, I promise.”

“What kind of ice-cream do you want, Lela?” the mother asked. Henry did not hear the child's reply as the crying had petered out, too low for even his sharp ears to pick up the sounds. Henry grinned wistfully and leaned back on his elbows. 

His back protested the movement and he sat back up, wincing at the sharp stab of pain emanating from his lower chest. 

“No, I don’t wanna,” a young boy's petulant voice piped up. “No shots,” he declared with the absolute certainty common of the very young. Henry imagined a little boy, his hands balled in tiny fists. A younger brother, perhaps, who had just witnessed his sister receive her inoculation. 

A girl's voice broke through the parental admonishments, soft, and wobbly. “You can give me Brian’s shot instead?” she said. 

“I don't even mind.”

Henry wondered at the kindness of the innocent. His faith in humanity was fractured. What happened in the black of night had left its scars on his spirit. Yet here in this place, only a room away, an act born of complete altruism was happening. A young sister wishing to spare her brother's distress was willing to take her brother's shot for him. Henry heard nothing else from the room. The little bits and pieces he had heard were enough to stitch together some of the ragged threads of his broken trust. 

In the absence of voices to occupy his attention, the silence grew thick and heavy. A tangible weight pressing down on his shoulders as the seconds continued to tick by. He crossed and uncrossed his arms before deciding to leave them at his side, gripping the corner of the bed. It was a hard and uncomfortable perch, noise erupting every time he shifted his ass. Sitting was not entirely comfortable, either, but he did not wish to examine that too deeply.

Annoyance welled up and he stuck with that feeling. Held it tight and close with both hands. It was far easier to handle than the cold wash of shame threatening. Irritated with his own irrational feelings skittering below the surface of his mind he read the charts and information stapled to the walls. A distraction from the fact that he was damn near naked save for his black boxer briefs waiting for the doctor and yet another _conversation_ he did not particularly want to have. His life was becoming a collection of mild discomforts as he struggled to silence the doubts _the incident_ had created. 

_I survived them. I can survive a few more minutes of discomfort,_ Henry castigated, resisting the urge to walk out. 

Henry could not leave, not yet, and he knew it. His main concern was that one of the bastards could have left him with an STI or some other unwanted issue besides the wounds inflicted on his body and in his head. Alone in the patient waiting room, he felt exposed, stripped down to almost nothing, and far too vulnerable for him to let down his guard. For too long nakedness had been a weakness, exploited _ad nauseum_. It would take time, getting comfortable in his own skin again.

Before irrational thoughts could win out the doctor swanned in with a flap of his white coat, a clipboard in his hand, and a frown on his face. He looked like someone who had stepped right off the television screen set.

The man looked up from his clipboard. His grey eyes were solemn behind his metal-rimmed glasses. “Good afternoon, Henry.” He gently closed the door behind him, careful not to let it slam shut. Henry was grateful. 

Loud noises tended to make him jump. He was already a bundle of over-stimulated nerves waiting for a spark to flare up. _Hypervigilance_ , he self-diagnosed. 

The doctor was a tall man but not imposing. “I am Dr. Landen Wittey,” he said, pulling out a sliding stool to sit on. “My parents were very disappointed I never lived up to the name,” he said cracking a smile, “so I became a doctor instead of a comedian.”

Henry appreciated his attempts to lighten the mood with humor and smiled weakly. It was strained and as paper-thin as the hospital gown he wore, rusty from lack of use.

“I see you’re here for a basic check-up routine and blood drawing to rule out STIs?” Doctor Wittey said. 

Henry nodded. 

“Firstly, I have to ask, do you want to have a _SANE_ medical examiner take evidence should you choose to pursue sexual assault charges now or later on down the line?” Doctor Wittey asked blunt and to the point in a way that was both mildly terrifying and refreshing. 

“I do not believe there was an _‘I was raped’_ box available on the form,” Henry said mildly. 

Doctor Wittey grimaced. “There isn't, but Marrisa Weatherly, the woman you spoke with at the admissions office, had a concern and she shared it with me before I stepped foot in this room.”

The tall man leaned forward, indicating sincerity, but he refrained from crossing into Henry’s personal space. Clearly, this was not his first rodeo. “I am very sorry this has happened to you but from here on out the control is in _your_ hands, Henry. If you want to pursue legal actions I will take all the necessary measures.”

Henry sighed. “I do not.” 

“Very well,” Doctor Wittey said. He did not argue with Henry or state why he should have chosen a different response. He did not tell Henry he was making the wrong decision. The doctor simply nodded and moved forward accepting the answer he had been given. 

Henry relaxed minutely as the man’s willingness to accept his answer at face value. 

Henry cleared his throat, awkwardly. ‘I...I think I may have fractured ribs, and there has been some...bleeding,” he quietly admitted, careful to keep his tone very calm, and his face very neutral. 

“Sadly this is not unusual. Sexual assault often results in minor bleeding for the survivor,” Doctor Wittey explained, giving Henry’s physical state a frank appraisal. His gaze was cool and clinical. 

There was no missing the bruises on his face, the scabbed-over cuts, or the ugly suck mark Mitch had gifted him with on their final parting. _This is a doctor, he has made it his life to fix people,_ Henry reminded, tamping down the fight or flight reflex the doctors’ visual inspection stirred. 

Seated on the doctor's stool that every waiting room was equipped with Doctor Wittey hummed, the sound low key and absentminded as he pushed himself to his feet. 

Henry was reminded once again that he was a tall man. Henry grit his teeth against the irrational desire to lash out. This man, while tall, was just a doctor. _His_ doctor. 

“Can you turn over and lay face down on the bed for me, these things usually heal on their own, but I don’t like taking risks.”

Doctor Wittey made a sound of sympathy when he got his first look at Henry’s back. “This really has not been your week,” he mused snapping his white latex gloves over his fingers. 

Henry remained silent, his head propped on his wrists. _I am at the Good Samaritan Hospital with Doctor Wittey. Trig is dead and I am alive,_ Henry thought to himself. He focused on the doctor's soothing voice as he gave detailed explanations for what he was doing before he followed his words with actions. 

“I am going to touch you now, is that alright?” the doctor asked. He always gave Henry time to process the question and either nod or shake his head in refusal before putting his hands on him. 

The examination continued in this manner. 

Henry was peppered with questions where he said _‘yes’_ or he said _‘no’_ and his choice was respected. 

After Trig’s head games, it was a refreshing change. It was also a good method of distraction. Intentional or otherwise, it kept Henry from disappearing too far into his own head which was filled with unmarked landmines waiting to go off. 

_‘Can I?’_ he was asked, _‘I’m doing this because…'_ the doctor explained, and _‘Does this hurt?’_ he was asked if he so much as twitched. 

Open communication helped dissociate the present from what had been done to him in the RV. Trig never asked for permission. He took what he wanted, excited by Henry’s protests. 

The doctor's touch was light and clinical making it easier to withstand than Henry had expected. 

It was over very quickly, too. 

“All done,” Doctor Wittey said, pulling off his gloves and lobbing them in the recyclable bin in the corner. He stepped away from the patient's bed allowing Henry the necessary space to maneuver back into a sitting position. 

“I know it will not seem this way right now, but you are _lucky_ ,” Doctor Wittey announced while Henry quickly tugged back on his limited clothing. “You have nothing more than minor 1st-degree tearing, no stitches needed in this case. The torn tissue will heal itself, it’s miraculous the damage the body can heal all on its own without modern medicine interfering. Now, I advise sticking to light foods and soups for a few weeks and after that, you will be right as rain.”

“You mentioned STI concerns?” Doctor Wittey asked. 

Henry nodded, his hands folded across his chest.

“Okay, the stats for contracting HIV are low, it’s in the 1% range. I’ll put it this way, if an HIV- negative person were the receptive partner in sex with an HIV-positive person who is the acting top, even if he were to ejaculate inside his partner, the chances of HIV transmission are low. Think, 1 out of 70,” Doctor Wittey explained. “But, we’ll go ahead and run a test for that as well as the other usual suspect in your blood work to be certain, with your permission?”

“Yes,” Henry agreed, “please do.”

“Now, let's see what’s to be done about those marks on your back, a tetanus shot to ward off any infections, then we’ll take a look at those ribs of yours, Henry. Okay?”

Henry shrugged, finding himself far more relaxed now that the part of the examination he had dreaded was over with. “Whatever you say, Doctor Wittey.”

Henry walked out of the hospital two hours later. The hospital staff had been able to process his blood work remarkably fast. The prognosis, a clean bill of health. Having that knowledge was freeing. He was weary, the events of the day beginning to take their toll, but he left with a more peaceful mind knowing that he had sorted out the practicalities required for his well being. A small white paper bag clutched in his hand contained _Hydrocodone_ , the pain prescription prescribed by Doctor Wittey for the hair-line rib fracture, and a _Xanax_ to help mitigate his anxiety symptoms. 

Henry stepped back outside, glad to escape the scent of cleaning chemicals that burned at his nose. He had never liked hospitals, not visiting them, not being bound to a bed _in_ them. Hospitals were places of healing, yes, but the shadow of death looming at its core within bland, white walls were inescapable. The ultimate paradox, life, and death dancing on the head of a pin. For each heart monitor machine gently beeping away at a bedside somewhere within those same walls, there was another that had been forever stopped. 

Henry was just glad that the outcome had been good this time, when he had gone in he did not know what to expect. Standing just past the entrance in the open, a light drizzle of rain dampening his jacket, he stopped to breathe in the cold, crisp winter air. He allowed himself a moment to collect himself, taking in the gentle breeze swaying the trees, and admired the electric charge in the air, a sweet, pungent scent that heralded an incoming storm. 

“Hey stranger, you goin’ my way?” a familiar voice called out from the rolled-down window. A truck was pulling around the drop-off circle at the hospital entrance. The glare of headlights blinded Henry for a moment before he made out the make and model of Omar’s black _Silverado_. 

Henry's breath caught in the back of his throat, every muscle in his body tensing up as a memory forced its way to the surface. 

_“Fuck, you are pretty,”_ Mitch said, right before he raped him. 

Henry shivered, remembering confusion and pain, as he was bent over the tailgate of a _Toyota_ on the side of a deserted highway leading out of town. It was a cold terror that seized him by the throat, the knowledge that no one was coming to help. 

_It has already happened, let it go,_ Henry thought, forcefully setting aside the awful feeling of hands' on his skin, and weight pressing him into cold, rain-damp metal. As quick as the memory arose, it receded, a tidal wave swept back out to sea. 

Henry snorted to himself as he approached the approaching truck. He flicked an appraising glance in the other man's direction trying to figure out if he had noticed his lapse. It appeared he had not. Omar leaned across the seats to pop the cab door open. 

At least he had not called him _chief_ , that one got old very fast. 

“Tell me, Omar, have you been circling the lot this whole time just so you could do that?” Henry asked as he climbed into the vehicle. 

He reacted with sarcasm in an attempt to cover the feeling budding in his chest. In truth, he was relieved. He had not been sure Omar would still be waiting when he was cut loose. 

Omar laughed, a loud bark of sound that was completely genuine. After two hours of people respectfully tip-toeing around him, Omar's brash loudness was a welcome change. 

“Not exactly,” Omar said, nudging a brown paper bag with a _Busy Bee_ logo stamped outside towards Henry's knee. 

“I did get us lunch, or well, early dinner?” Omar muttered. 

“Thank you,” Henry said. He peeled back the paper bag to reveal the _Busy Bee Signature Chicken_ , a favorite of many locals, himself included. 

Taken aback by the other man’s continual thoughtfulness Henry refrained from poking at Omar any further. He _was_ hungry; it was often a bad sign when the last recollection of a satisfied appetite was both vague and hazy. 

Henry’s stomach rumbled in agreement. The scent of food other than refried beans had his mouth watering in anticipation. 

“Well, don’t just look at it, dig in,” Omar muttered, biting into his burger as he kept his right hand on the wheel. “You looked a little peaked when I rolled up -- you okay? Anyone give you shit at the hospital?” Omar asked, his eyes focused straight ahead. 

It finally dawned on him how the other man was acting, like a protective older brother. 

Henry hid his smile by taking a large bite of his own meal. It occurred to him that if he said someone _had_ given him trouble Omar might actually do something in retaliation.

They had not, of course, the staff had been respectful and clinical about their business. It caused a soft warm sensation to bloom in Henry's chest. The discovery that Omar gave a shit. It was unexpected. 

“No one gave me shit, Omar, the staff were professionals.”

“Okay, good,” Omar grunted and that was the last words that passed between the two men as the truck made good time back to the _Red Pony_. The silence stretched out, long and comfortable. Nothing but the occasional bump in the road, and the thump of snow slush buffeting the windshield. 

Henry stared out the side window and allowed himself to admire the bending of the trees, swaying with the gusts of wind but standing tall. Unbroken. 

_Back, back, back_ the storm pressed them, air currents passing through their rough bark. When it passed the storm would be gone, swallowed up into nothingness, leaving no trace. But not the trees, they would still be there, rooted in the soil, growing tall and strong for generations. 

Lost in his head Henry took an embarrassingly long time to realize the truck had rolled to a stop. Omar let it pass without comment and he felt his debt to the man double. 

There it was, his home, his own bed, _finally_ within reach. 

Why was he suddenly afraid of it all being snatched away? To wake and find himself bound by metal restraints, boxed in by walls that were collapsing inwards. 

Henry swallowed, his hand on the door. _There is no way but through,_ Henry realized. If he were to let this fear rule him now it would never let him go. He would never be free. 

“I could-” Omar began to say. 

“No,” Henry said, cutting him off before he could finish. “But thank you, Omar, you have done more than could have been expected, given the circumstances.” 

“Well, damn, Walt always said you were a mind reader,” Omar snorted, “Heh, looks like I owe him fifty bucks.”

“He said that about me?” Henry asked, stuck somewhere in the no-man’s land that existed in the liminal space between amused and irritated. “One is required to have a talent for such things if they are to be friends with a man who so often retreats to an inner-world.”

Omar chuckled. “To be fair, he was a bit drunk at the time.”

Henry shook his head. “Good night, Omar,” he said bracing for the rain pouring down from the skies. 

“See you around, chief.”

Henry groaned and shut the truck door. Maybe with more force than was required. All the same, he took the sound of Omar’s laughter with him all that way into his establishment. It warmed those parts of Henry that had become numb and cold. 

Henry closed the door behind him, sliding the dead-lock into place, and surveyed the establishment. He was relieved to find it much the same as when he had left. Henry snorted to himself. _Left._ That made it sound as if he had gone on some kind of walkabout. 

He pulled out the stack of brochures the hospital staff had gently, so very gently, insisted he put in his pocket. In their kindness, they only remind him of his brokenness. A whiskey glass shattered across the barroom floors. The bright colors and soft tones on the thick paper at war with their contents. He sighed and set them face-down on his nightstand. He did not want to look at them any longer. It made a deep aching sadness rise up and he did not know what to do with it. 

He _wanted_ to go back to normal. 

Henry looked around at his room, the second door between him and the outside world offering a small amount of comfort. Dried up sage sat at the small table, a borrowed book rested on the chair. Everything in its place just as he had left it. This private space, at least, was undisturbed by the ghost of _Penrose_. Henry gingerly laid himself down on the bed fully clothed and closed his eyes.

A plaintive whine drifted in from the window, followed by the sound of scratching. Henry sat up with a sigh, rubbed a hand over his face as he investigated the sound. He slid the window up, leaping back in surprise when an orange ball launched itself into the room and twisted itself around his feet, meowing a greeting.

“Oh, it is you,” Henry muttered, looking at the cat skeptically. “Shoo,” he said, trying to herd it back out the window. “I do not have food for you tonight.”

Henry watched it stalk the perimeter of his room ignoring his commands. _Checking for mice?_ Henry wondered and decided he did not mind too much. 

Disinterested in the words of humans it leaped onto the bed with that peculiar feline grace reserved for its species and made itself at home on his one pillow. It looked back at him. Its sharp green eyes were preternaturally calm and unfazed by Henry’s reluctance to share his bed with something he knew to scratch and bite.

“You bite, you leave,” Henry warned. He frowned realizing he was speaking to a cat. It crossed his mind to remove the animal but he did not. 

_It would be too much trouble_ , he decided but it was only a half-truth. The cat filled the empty spot where loneliness might otherwise have snuck in and made itself at home.

Henry laid back down, using his arm as a pillow, counting it a success when his bedmate remained docile. Thin, fragile-looking limbs happily curled atop the pillow covering. There was something to be said for a domesticated animal that represented the double nature of strength and fragility. Henry grinned into the arm he rested his head upon, amused despite himself by the entire predicament. The cat’s pretense of delicacy was only that, a pretense. It was capable of fending for itself or, in his case, ousting a grown man from his own place in his own bed. 

He did not mind terribly, not tonight, as he watched the shadows collect on the walls. The cat meowed, a gentle, quiet sound that was very unusual to Henry, but it served its purpose. Shaking him loose of the tacky, cobwebbed thoughts circling like coyotes in the dark. Henry was more familiar with demanding yowls, and bared-teeth hissing, but it was a nice enough sound he decided.

Henry turned over, laying on his back. He tentatively ran the tips of his fingers over the animal's spine and closed his eyes.

Sleep crept in gently as a midsummer breeze. The scent of lavender and zinnias suffusing the room as Henry drifted between waking and dreaming. He was eased into its embrace by the gentle rumble of purring, silken tail fur tickling against the side of his face. _It is just for tonight,_ Henry thought, before he slipped away into the soft darkness of deep sleep. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Author's Note:_ I know that a narrative is meant to stand alone without authorial input on the matter. However, I felt the need to explain some of the elements I [attempt to] incorporate in this chapter. Early on, so far back I expect no one [barely even myself] to remember Henry mentioned a feral tabby, this is he/she returned to the story unexpectedly. Secondly, in chapter 1 Henry is described as losing the ability to admire the beauty of the “storm/winter,” here I am attempting to reclaim that wonderment. In bits and pieces, little threads restitching themselves into place. Lastly, the “scent of flowers/zinnias” is a soft thread pulling back to the ghostly memory of Martha that Henry drifted into while he was kidnapped. I do not expect anyone to have read this, but if you did: _‘Wow, thank you!’_
> 
> PS: All information used herein was Googled.
> 
> “SANE Program Development and Operation Guide.” Office for Victims of Crime Training and Technical Assistance Center, www. ovcttac. gov / saneguide / introduction / what-is-a-sane /.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walt carried himself into the room with a quiet menace, controlled violence seething below the surface. The harsh lines of his face were grooved deeper for the fury coiled in his belly, lending fire to the steely glint in his eye. 
> 
> Walt dragged Vic’s empty chair in front of the jail cell, the back legs squealed in noisome protest until he dropped it back onto all four legs. 
> 
> Holden winced, nervously licking his lips, his hazel eyes drifting to the gun holstered at Walt’s hip. 
> 
> Without saying a word Walt took a seat, elbows braced on his knees as he leaned forward. Here he was, the monster who’d done terrible things to his friend. Now, it was up to him to make sure some kind of justice was served.

_Sheriff’s Department:_

Walt paced, restless as a caged tiger in a zoo. He’d called the _Red Pony_ and when no one answered his stomach started tying itself up in knots. It was irrational, expecting Henry to have answered so quickly when he didn’t even know if his home was where Henry had gone. It made him jumpy right now, not knowing where Henry was. 

“Ferg!” Walt shouted, holding out his hand.

“You know, sir, I could get you one, if you wanted?” Ferg said as he dug through his pockets, “they don’t cost much these days.”

“I don’t need one, not when I can borrow yours,” Walt replied, snagging it from the deputies outstretched hand. “Thanks,” he said, kicking the door shut with his heel.

“Omar, where is he?” Walt asked, pacing the floor of his office. “I want to talk to him,” he snapped, tightening his grip on Ferg’s cell phone as he waited. 

“I’m gonna cut you slack because this is a shit situation, but Walt? Ease up, I’m not the one you're mad at,” Omar said. The roughness in his tone indicated he was getting upset, too. Walt reeled in his anger.

Walt sighed, rubbing his forehead. Omar was right. It wasn’t him he was mad at. He was angry with the entire situation. It felt like he’d walked into a scene after the crime had been committed. 

He was the clean-up crew left behind to wrangle the strays and push a broom through the wreckage. He wasn’t used to that feeling applying to Henry and he didn’t like the bitter taste it left in his mouth. The knowledge that he’d let Henry down somehow. 

“He’s at the _Good Samaritan_ , okay? He’s safe,” Omar said. “And Walt? He’s not ready to talk, not to you, not to me, not anyone.”

Walt grit his teeth, jaws audible clicking in pent-up frustration. “You think I want to force him to do that?” Walt growled into the receiver. 

“That’s the last thing I want -- that’s…” Walt trailed off. 

That was exactly what his position required him to do, wasn’t it? He could not hold Mitch Holden indefinitely without filing charges. He had him dead to rights for kidnapping. _Milton's_ security camera saw to that. It was the unspoken _rest_ that made his stomach flop, twisting and heaving like he’d eaten bad fish. 

Walt sent Vic to inform Mandy Hall that her would-be kidnapper had been apprehended and that she had the right to press physical assault and attempted kidnapping charges. He was still waiting to hear back from Vic about the young woman. All that was left was Henry’s confirmation, or denial, on the sexual assault charges, and the matter of what he wanted to be done about it. 

Walt had promised himself he would abide by Henry’s choice. If he was to prove any kind of a friend he had too. He closed his eyes, staring blindly out the window. The sky had turned gray outside. It looked like there was a storm coming their way, after all. 

Omar was quiet for a long time over the line. 

“I think you are torn, conflicted between best friend duties, and sheriff duties.” 

“Why can’t they be in alignment, huh?” Walt asked.

“Because, this is the real world, not a Goddamn fairy tale,” Omar bit out. “Real life doesn’t come neatly tied with a red ribbon and _the end_.”

Walt resisted the temptation to press the red ‘call ended’ button, grab his coat, and find Henry as he wanted. Omar was still right, dammit. He _was_ conflicted. He had a criminal in his jail cell, tethering him like a ball and chain to his duty. 

“Look, I don’t think Henry will mind me saying, so I’m gonna tell you what you need to know. He is not pressing sexual assault charges, alright?” Omar said. His voice was oddly strained and brittle. Walt wondered if it was just a bad connection that made him sound like that. 

Walt nodded, an unconscious reaction even though Omar couldn't see it, miles stretching out between them. He paused, staring into grey-black clouds wishing for a moment that he could switch places. Omar could do this bit while _he_ drove Henry wherever the hell he wanted to go. Do whatever the hell he wants. 

Omar sighed, taking a deep breath on the other side of the line. “He’s not having evidence collected or any of that _CSI: Miami_ shit, okay? I tried to convince him otherwise, but he won't hear it from me. _That’s_ what you needed to know to go forward with this case, right?” Omar asked.

“Yes, that will do. I can’t say that I’m surprised,” Walt admitted. “Henry isn’t easily persuaded once he’s made his mind up about anything.”

“Hey, while I got you on the line, I’m picking up lunch, do you know what he likes from the _Busy Bee_ ? I’m swinging through there before heading back to the _Good Samaritan_ to pick him up.” 

“Get the _Busy Bee Signature Chicken,_ ” Walt suggested, “Henry likes that one.” 

“And Omar? Thanks,” Walt muttered, as his thoughts began turning like rats on a wheel. Henry may not wish to press charges but there was no law legally binding him to inform Mitch of that important detail. 

“Look, it’s not _just_ you that I’m doing this for, okay?” Omar said, blunt and full of conviction. “He turned up on my doorstep, middle of the night, half-frozen, almost dead, you know? Henry said things when he was out of his head with fever. Stuff that I can’t get out of my head,” Omar admitted his voice a horse whisper. 

Walt listened, stunned. 

“Half dead? You failed to mention that part.”

“I didn’t forget shit, it's not my story to tell, Walt.”

“So,” Omar said, coughing to clear the emotion from his voice. “You nail that son of a bitch, Longmire.”

“Alright,” Walt promised.

Some things needed doing and it fell to him to see it done. Deciding he’d waited long enough Walt stood from his seat, the chair skidding back, as he stalked back into the center of the department. The door swung shut with a loud bang. Ferg and Mitch Holden jumped in their seats. 

Walt carried himself into the room with a quiet menace, controlled violence seething below the surface. The harsh lines of his face were grooved deeper for the fury coiled in his belly, lending fire to the steely glint in his eye. 

Walt dragged Vic’s empty chair in front of the jail cell, the back legs squealed in noisome protest until he dropped it back onto all four legs. 

Holden winced, nervously licking his lips, his hazel eyes drifting to the gun holstered at Walt’s hip. 

Without saying a word Walt took a seat, elbows braced on his knees as he leaned forward. Here he was, the monster who’d done terrible things to his friend. Now, it was up to him to make sure some kind of justice was served. 

The silence in the room was deafening.

“Ferg, grab the drug test from the cabinet,” Walt ordered. “Roll up your sleeve and stick your arm through the bar, Mr. Holden. Now, you can refuse, you have that right you see,” Walt explained, “you can say no.”

“No, I’m saying no then, you heard that, right?” Mitch said, turning to Ferg. “I said no,” he repeated. His words were quick and short-breathed from anxiety. 

The time he’d spent waiting had done its job. His leg was bouncing, and sweet had pooled at the collar of his gray sweater. It had the _Wolverines, West Yellowstone High_ logo emblazoned on the front. An exact match to the one Amy White Feather and Mandy Hall had described. 

“Sure, you can say no Mr. Holden,” Walt agreed, amicably. His demeanor was eerily calm and unhurried as he spoke. “That’s your right, isn’t it? Now, see, what happens next if you do say no is this. I’ll call up Judge Lasko, get a warrant issued in 15 to 30 minutes, and _then_ I’ll take that blood sample.” 

Walt chuckled a harsh grin curving up the corner of his mouth as if he were laughing at a private joke. He saw it when understanding dawned. In his jail cell, Mitch became paler, all the color sucked out of him like blood from an artery spray.

“So, you see, it doesn’t _really_ matter what you say.”

Mitch had pulled his knees up to his chest on the hard, flat bunk in the jail cell, his eyes fixated on the top of his knees. Slowly, like a caged animal he stuck his arm through the bar and Walt took the blood sample and handed it off to Ferg.

Walt didn’t fall for the helpless act -- if it was an act. He hadn’t made up his mind about that yet. It occurred to him that there was a chance, however slim, that Smithson had gotten a hold on the young man and used it to his advantage. Not that it was any kind of excuse. 

Walt didn’t dismiss the thought entirely. He also considered it was a case of _stalker meets sociopath_ , and Henry was the collateral. _Hell, there might even have been others,_ Walt thought to himself. 

“Ferg, run this down to Doctor Bloomberg, wait there at _Good Samaritan_ for the results, bring them to me unopened,” Walt said, watching as the deputy wiggled into his coat and made tracks out the door. 

It said a lot that Ferg didn’t question his orders for secrecy. Walt grimaced when it crossed his mind that he’d scared the kid a little. 

To look at him now Mitch appeared miserable and very, very young. Walt might never have known he was looking at a monster. Walt knew better. He’d seen the footage on the laptop at the crime scene. Some knowledge there was no erasing.

“Do you understand why you’re in there and I’m out here, Mr. Holden?” Walt asked, tapping the bars. 

Mitch nodded but kept his mouth shut. 

“Okay. You are under arrest for kidnapping and sexual assault. You have the right to remain silent. If you give up that right anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

Mitch sucked in a breath, his eyes wide. 

Walt felt irritation clawing at his gut. He didn’t care if Mitch’s reaction was an act or genuine. How had the man thought this was going to go? He’d kidnapped a human begin and held them against their will for three weeks. 

He cleared his throat and continued speaking, getting the legal details out of the way. “You have the right to an attorney and have him present during your interrogation. If you cannot afford a lawyer one will be appointed to you free of charge. Do you understand your rights as they have been read to you, Mr. Holden?” Walt asked.

Mitch nodded. 

“Okay. Those are your rights, I suggest you think this over, long and hard,” Walt suggested, “because you kidnapped a man, Mr. Holden, I have the security footage from a nearby establishment proving this. Mr. Standing Bear has also testified that Mr. Smithson and you arranged to kidnap him outside his bar, the _Red Pony_.”

“My deputy is taking your blood to the _Good Samaritan Hospital_ as we speak. If the drugs in your system are either illegal or over the allowed limit then I’ll be adding drug charges to the list,” Walt explained. “Now, I’m going to make you an offer, and you're going to want to hear it before asking for your lawyer,” Walt cut in, watching the gears turn in the young man's head. 

The harsh reality of his situation was crashing down on Mitch like a house of cards. Walt sat back, relishing the front row seats, as he baited the lure. 

“My hands are tied with the kidnapping, you made your bed son, and you're going to have to lie in it. But we can talk about the drug charges and the sexual assault,” Walt said, “for a price.”

“For -- for a price?” Mitch stuttered, looking around wildly. It had suddenly dawned on him he was locked up, alone, with the sheriff. Best friend of the man he’d raped less than 24 hours prior. 

“You don’t speak of the sexual assault with anyone, not ever.”

Mitch’s mouth fell open. “That's it?” 

“I will persuade Mr. Standing Bear to drop the sexual assault charges,” Walt paused, bracing himself for the rest, the worst yet to come. 

It made him sick, playing these games but Henry’s well-being mattered more than a minor stain on his conscience. It might cost him some sleep at night but not near so much as it would if this shit got out because he couldn’t keep a lid on it. 

“Why?” Mitch choked out. “I don’t understand what’s going on here,” he muttered, frowning as he searched Walt’s face. Trying to find some clue that would explain the direction this conversation had taken. 

“You really want to be asking questions, a time like this?” Walt asked, his voice rough as gravel as he leaned forward, conspiringly. “There’s a saying, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

“I’m doing you a favor.” Walt leaned back in his chair, “But if you don’t wanna hear what I--”

“No, wait! Tell me,” Mitch demanded.

“You are going to jail, there is no escaping that,” Walt stated. “The question is if you really want the guys on the inside knowing you’re gay?” Walt asked. The look of terror on the kid's face told him he’d laid his trap with the proper incentive. 

_Self-preservation, the great motivator,_ Walt mused. 

This fish was good as fried. 

Walt sat back in his chair, studying the way the suspect held himself. He was hunched over, worrying his lower lip between his teeth with an arm looped around his knees. At that moment Walt decided it wasn’t an act but that didn’t change the facts.

“Trig always said it wouldn’t matter much if Henry spoke up, on account of his race,” Mitch whispered, “I guess he didn’t know about you, Sheriff.”

“No, no I suppose he didn't,” Walt agreed, tamping down the surge of anger that shot through him at the suspect's confession. 

It never ceased to surprise him; the lows people would sink to. 

Henry had been targeted because Smithson genuinely believed no one would care or even care enough to _listen_ on account of Henry being _Cheyenne._ It chewed at Walt. Rats, gnawing at his soul. 

It was an ugly realization, if not a new one. It was like forgetting the depravity humanity was capable of and being forcefully reminded by the stench of a mutilated corpse newly unearthed.

_Why the fuck did people have to be such damn assholes?_ Walt thought, his nostrils flaring. There was nothing worse than rage with nowhere to go. Smithson was dead and Holden was safely behind bars. There was nothing left for him to do but make sure the charges stuck like fucking super-glue.

“I guess Henry was right, he said you’d catch us, at the end. He was so damn certain, so damn smug about it, too. Trig got so mad he near-to lost his head that time,” Mitch snorted.

“Trig said we’d never get caught,” Mitch muttered, shaking his head, “sure show’s what he knew, doesn't it.”

“You’d do well not to take a dead man’s advice son, your friend walked himself into an early grave. Are you planning to follow him in?” Walt asked. “Or will you take the deal?”

“I’ll take the deal, I know I’m caught, I’ve seen how this plays out a hundred times on television. I just,” Mitch paused, stood up, and placed his hands on the bars so he was face to face with Walt. “I have to ask, sheriff, how is he?”

Walt took off his hat and patted it against his leg, giving him something to do, as that familiar friend rage snuck back to the surface. _The fucking audacity of this kid,_ Walt thought, his face twisting in anger.

“Why?” Walt asked instead of answering. He kept his cool, his anger leashed tight, betrayed only by the white-knuckle grip he had on his Stetson, bending it out of its proper shape. “What does it matter to you, anyhow, the only time you’re going to see Mr. Standing Bear is when he’s in court, testifying against you.”

Mitch leaned against the bar, smiling, the first one Walt had seen on the young man since this had begun. “It didn’t have to be like this, you know?” Mitch said with a faraway look. 

It was obvious to Walt the suspect was speaking more to himself than anything else. He said nothing, waiting to see what else was going to spill out.

“If he’d just give me the time of day --” Mitch sighed, shaking his head. “Maybe it would have been different.”

“I just wanted him to go out back with me, you know? Once would have been enough, but he never even noticed me, he ignored me like I was just another customer at the bar.”

“What exactly did you expect?” Walt asked, “you’d never had a conversation that wasn’t about taking your order.”

Mitch shrugged, sitting back down on his bunk. He flicked a pointed look at Walt, frowning. "I knew it would never happen, there was only ever one person he made time for, even on the busiest days, and it wasn’t _me_.”

Walt locked up. Every muscle in his body tensing as the full impact of the suspect's words rammed into him like a freight strain. He felt like he’d been sucker-punched. Holden had been stalking Henry for a lot longer than he’d expected. It hadn’t been the break-up with Holland that had been the catalyst. It was _him_ , dammit. Holden must have seen him with Henry that one night. He’d gotten _jealous_. 

Walt mentally cursed even as his expression remained neutral. Guilt swamped him. It tangled around his chest and _squeezed_. 

“At least now I have a name to put to the face: Walt Longmire,” Mitch muttered. “I really am sorry you know, that’s why I let him go, you see?” he paused, glanced at Walt who was caught off guard by the young man's confession. 

“Oh, wow, he didn’t tell you that part, I can see from your face he didn't. Anyhow, that doesn’t matter, I just -- I just was curious I guess? If he was okay?” Mitch finished. 

“Mr. Standing Bear will be just fine,” Walt promised. He hoped he sounded more confident than he felt. At the moment, he didn’t know a damn thing about what was going through Henry’s mind and it bothered him more than he cared to admit. 

“Good, that’s good.”

“To be crystal clear, if at any time you decide to go back on this deal, or talk with the news, the media, your mother -- anyone about Henry? I will find out, and when I do I want you to remember one thing son, Henry is important to me.”

“When I say I have the power to make your life on _the inside_ hell I mean it in ways you can't yet comprehend,” Walt vowed. 

It was a calculated risk, showing his hand like this, but Walt needed to be certain Mitch knew the full weight of the pact he’d entered. This was not idle talk, Walt meant every word. 

“Are we clear?” Walt asked. 

“Yes, sir, I think we’re clear,” Mitch replied. “I want that lawyer now.”

“I didn’t hurt him too badly, you know?” Mitch said flopping back on his bunk, his arm flung across his face. He looked like every other college kid Walt had seen trapeze through town on Spring Break. He looked harmless.

“I’m not like Trig, Henry said so, and he was right, so I let him go,” Mitch muttered. “Just thought you should know, sheriff.”

Walt was quiet and outwardly calm, an immovable rock. “You can tell yourself whatever you need to. So long as you face up to what you’ve done, Mitch. But what you took from Henry, his freedom, his dignity? You hadn’t the right,” Walt snarled, pulling his Stetson back on, low over his face. 

“No Goddamn right.”

Walt stalked from the room and down the stairs. He needed to breathe air that hadn’t been contaminated by the baby-faced monster in the jail cell. He yanked the door open and stepped out onto the sidewalk. His breath came hard and fast as he gulped in the fresh air. 

A storm had struck the town without warning. The rain was poured down, soaking Walt down to the bone, but he didn’t move, taking it all in, the earthy, sweet scent of a winter downpour filling his lungs and clearing out the stench of human toxicity. He stayed outside, shivering and alone, leaning against the side of the building. 

Tears stung at his eyes and guilt clung to his thoughts. The dumb college kid had seen him stay the night with Henry and leave in the early morning hours. He’d done what all obsessive stalkers did when the object of their affections became involved with someone else. He got jealous. 

This really was his fault, dammit. Walt slid down, his ass landing on the wet, snow carpeted sidewalk and buried his head in his hands. 

“What the hell, Walt! What do you think you're doing out here?” Vic snapped. Her face was scrunched in confusion over his actions. “Come on, up you go,” the blond woman commanded. 

Vic offered him a hand up, the ground was wet and slippery. She was concerned he’d fall and break his back. Walt snorted and accepted her assistance, she was probably right to be concerned. 

“Jesus, Walt, c’mon!” she said, taking him by the arm and half dragged him to his feet when he moved too slowly for her liking. “What’s wrong with you, it’s fucking freezing out here,” she grumbled. 

Walt mechanically followed her back to the sheriff’s department. He stopped at the stairs, becoming immovable to Vic’s gentle tugs on his arm.

“Did you get in touch with Mandy Hall?” Walt asked instead of answering.

“Nu-hu, you first, what do you think you were doing, standing in the rain like that?” Vic asked, her eyes drilling into him. Searching for answers his expression couldn’t tell. 

“I was thinking.”

Vic groaned. “Fine, be like that, I talked to the girl, okay? She’ll be by tomorrow to see if looking at Mitch Holden jogs her memory.”

“Good, that's real good Vic.”

“Walt, c’mon, what’s up with you?” she asked, “are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Vic.” Walt smiled. A faint, barely-there facsimile of the real deal. It seemed to set the woman at ease so he kept it on, pasted to his face, even if it hurt to pretend.

“Listen, there’s somewhere I have to be,” Walt said. Vic looked surprised and he didn’t blame her. But once he’d said the words he’d know it for the absolute truth. 

There was somewhere else he needed to be. It was time for sheriff duties and friend duties to align, dammit. 

Walt drove to the _Red Pony_ and parked his truck out front. The lights were out and there was no hint of light coming from the bedroom window where Henry slept. He couldn't make himself get out, so he didn't. Rationally he knew he should turn on the engine and drive home right now but he couldn’t convince his heart to listen. 

Knocking on Henry’s door in the middle of the night at a time like this wouldn't be right, for a lot of reasons, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave. So he didn't. Walt remained where he was soaking up the remnants of warmth from the heater before the air became chilled enough that he could see his breath. He’d survived worse things in his life than a bit of damp on a cold night. 

Walt tipped his Stetson down, letting his eyes turn inward, and his thoughts run wild.

It eased the tension riding him, just being here. Close, but not touching. He was fine with that if that’s how it had to be. He couldn’t be there for Henry any of the times he’d needed him before. He could wait here, keep watch during the night. It wasn’t exactly necessary with both kidnappers accounted for but it quieted the guilt gnawing at his bones. 

Walt scooted down in his seat. He knew he’d pay for it in aches and pains tomorrow but it was a price he was willing to pay. Walt stubbornly folded his arms across his chest, drifting off in a restless sleep listening to the gentle _pitter-patter_ of rainfall. He wasn't home, exactly, but it was close enough. 

As he drifted, half asleep, half awake, he remembered that strange dream with the silver cord and the bear. Walt grit his teeth against the cold and hunkered down, determined to stick out the storm. He knew what it meant now. That silver cord might be frayed at the edges but it wasn’t beyond mending. Still, he knew, deep in his bones, if he let it slip out of his grasp now there'd be no getting it back. It was this thought he took with him into the dark as sleep crept in and swept him under a wave of exhaustion. 

Walt jolted awake, his hand automatically reaching for his gun. He looked around with a deeply disgruntled look, carding a hand through his hair until it was sticking up in impossible directions. 

He stumbled out of the cab, groaning as his back protested his poor sleeping habits. 

It took him a solid minute to notice the raven-haired man standing beside his cab door with an unimpressed look on his face. Walt didn’t care about that yet. All he could see was the mug of coffee, smelling like a dark roast and black as sin. 

He made _‘gimme’_ grabby-hands motions, greedily gulping down a mouthful uncaring of the slightly-to-hot burn as it went down. He sighed, feeling much more human after his caffeine fix. Maybe he _was_ getting a little too old for sleeping in trucks in front of friends' houses. Good intentions or not. 

He slowly looked up from the contents of his mug to see Henry with his arms folded across his chest. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth and Walt relaxed.

“Tell me you did not sleep all night in your truck outside my establishment,” Henry said. Henry was also looking at him as if he’d lost his marbles, which Walt took exception to but he kept it to himself.

“Okay,” he said, shrugged, and drank the last of the coffee. After the night he’d had, that had been heavenly. 

Henry finally relented, a smile winning out as he motioned for him to follow. Walt didn’t need to be asked twice. 

“That coffee will make you jittery if I do not get some food for you,” Henry said, by way of answer. “I will make us some breakfast.”

Walt pulled out a seat at his table in the middle of the bar, close to the liquor bar but with a clear sight-line toward the door. It was where he always seated himself, providing it was available. It was today. The bar was completely empty still. 

Walt could hear Henry moving around in the kitchen. “You don’t have to!” Walt called out, to be polite, but it was a bit like saying _‘I’m not hungry’_ after the cook had already slaughtered the pig and cooked the goose. 

As he’d expected Henry ignored him and returned twenty minutes later with scrambled eggs, hash browns, and crispy bacon served up on two plates. Henry was a hell of a cook. Walt had a hard time saying no to any food he offered. Walt was hungry enough to eat a horse so he accepted the food, which had become its own kind of peace offering between them over the years, with good graces. 

“Was there a particular reason you decided to camp outside my establishment last night, Walt?” Henry asked, a hint of unease creeping in. 

“No, no, nothing like that,” Walt said, quickly reassuring Henry that nothing was _actually_ wrong and that Holden was safely locked away behind bars. Walt had correctly guessed at what Henry had begun to consider. 

_Had he been wondering that this whole while?_ Walt asked himself. 

“You could have let yourself in last night, instead of sleeping in your truck,” Henry said, so slow and careful, his eyes fixed on his food. 

Henry was lying. He did it so rarely that Walt could usually catch him when he did. He didn’t have a tell, as such, but Walt knew he’d made the right choice in not disturbing him last night. 

“I wanted to give you space.”

“So you camped out outside my room all night instead?” Henry asked, raising his eyebrow in genuine curiosity. 

Walt groaned. “Alright, alright, that was a bit stalkerish, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” Henry said, “just a bit.”

Across from him, Henry set down his fork, plate half-finished. “But it was also sweet,” Henry conceded, grinning, “just a bit.”

Walt squirmed in his seat, his face burning. 

Henry pushed his plate towards Walt. “I will not finish this.”

Walt pulled it the rest of the way across the table, satisfying the hunger in his stomach even as his heart did little leaps in his chest over the kind smile Henry had directed his way. He wanted to lean across, like he had some many times before, and steal a kiss. Taste the sweet maple syrup on Henry’s tongue. But he didn’t. 

“Henry,” Walt said, pausing. 

“You know my door’s always open to you, any time, any reason?” 

“I know,” Henry quietly agreed. 

“Okay,” Walt said, “and if, uh, you ever wanted to talk, about anything, I’m here.”

Henry stood from his seat and came to perch on Walt’s side of the table. Henry’s hand came up, lightly resting against the bristled on his face. Without speaking Henry leaned down and kissed him, a little more than chaste, but less than filthy. Walt held very still, breathing in the scent of him, savoring the hint of maple in his own mouth. 

“Did you just...” Walt swallowed, licking his lips, “kiss me to shut me up?”

“Are you complaining?” Henry asked, still hovering so close that Walt could feel the whisper of his breath against his face. 

“No, I don’t suppose I am.”

Henry patted his cheek gently and pulled away. 

Walt exhaled, his wide eyes trained on Henry who grinned back at him. 

“Do you have somewhere you need to be?” Henry reminded, flicking his eyes toward the clock. Walt cursed, looking at the time. He jumped out of his seat and rushed for the door.

“Any Walt?” Henry called out.

Walt skidded to a halt, his head popping back around the corner. “Yeah?”

“Stop telling people I am a mind-reader. I do not need more white-people getting any funny ideas about the _Cheyenne._ ”

Walt laughed, “To be fair-”

“You were very drunk?” Henry said, a tiny smirk playing at the edges of his mouth as he finished the sentence for Walt. 

  
  


Walt froze for a second before he shook it off. He walked back into the room until he stood chest to chest with Henry. Slowly, telegraphing his intentions he brushed a wayward lock of black hair behind Henry’s ear. 

“See, it’s you doing things like that that gives _me_ funny ideas,” Walt muttered. 

“Hmm,” Henry said. “You are going to be late.”

Walt chucked. “Yeah, probably.”

The moment ended when the front door blew inward, a chill breeze sweeping through the bar. Omar came in stomping snow off his feet all over the floor. Henry’s left eye twitched in annoyance at the mess. 

“Hey, Bear, what’s on the menu today?” the man asked, pulling out a chair where Walt had been seated only minutes ago. 

Where Henry had kissed _him_ only minutes ago. 

“Oh, hey, Walt,” Omar called out in greeting, “it’s cold as a witch's tit out there!” 

“Do you have spare clothes at the station?” Henry asked, ignoring Omar for the moment. Walt was mollified by that and let his low key resentment fade out. 

“Uh…”

Henry sighed. 

“You have left spares here before, go, change, then go to work,” Henry said, shaking his head. 

“If you come down with the flu do not expect me to be bringing you hot soup and sustenance until you are recovered,” Henry warned. 

Walt smiled. 

Henry was lying; he would be the _first_ person at the cabin with hot soup and food to keep him fed until he recovered. It just wouldn’t do for him to admit it. He was funny like that. Henry would grumble at him for getting sick, and bury him in _'I told you so's'_ , but he’d be there. 

“You heard the man! You have your marching orders, Longmire. Go change, then go to work -- don't you have bad guys to lock up, sheriff?” Omar laughed. 

Walt grimaced, stomping up the stairs to find the spares that had apparently been accumulated here over time. It was a relief to shed the damp clothes from the night before. Omar and Henry were sniping back and forth when he went back down. Walt quickly slipped past the two men, taking with him the gentle cadence of their conversation and the taste of maple syrup that stayed with him all day.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Vic crowed. 

“Pay up,” she said, turning to Ferg who passed her a fifty.

“Do I want to ask?” Walt asked, shooting a suspicious look at the pair of them while hanging up his coat.

Vic snorted. 

“Nope,” she said with a little _pop_ at the p. “So, how’s Henry, holding up alright?” she asked, genuine concern bleeding through her tough exterior. 

“Henry is being Henry,” Walt said, a lopsided smile sneaking its way across his face. He resisted the desire to touch his lips like a girl after her first kiss. 

He and Henry had kissed far too many times, in too many ways, for this to constitute any kind of first. Still, it always got him hot under the collar. 

“That bad, huh?” Vic said, slapping him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, I’m sure he’ll be fine, it could have been a lot worse.”

Walt blinked. 

“Maybe,” he said. “Just, uh, promise me you won’t say that to _him_ , okay?” Walt asked, shooting a warning look in the blond deputies direction.

“What do you think I am, stupid, or that cold? Shit,” Vic growled. “I know I've got a big mouth, okay? But I wouldn’t go saying something like that to a person, especially not your friend, Walt.”

She frowned, glaring up at him with her hands fisted at her hips. 

“Okay,” Walt said. He paused, frowning back at her. “I, uh, don’t think that actually,” he said. “I know your not stupid or I wouldn't have made you deputy.”

“You’re a _good_ person, Vic, I know that,” Walt said, “I’m just a little…”

“Overprotective because your best friend was kidnapped and almost killed? Don’t worry, I get it,” Vic said. “So, Mandy Hall and Amy White Feather will be coming by in a few hours, and that numskull's lawyer is going to be here in ten.”

“Which one did he get?” Walt asked.

“Lia Hartel,” Vic answered, “and for the record, she _is_ a stone-cold bitch.”

Walt raised an eyebrow and Vic explained. “First thing Mrs. Hartel did was try to squeeze information on the kidnap survivor from me,” Vi said, shaking her head in disgust. “If she gets the chance she’s going to make this seem like Henry was asking to be kidnapped.”

“Then let's not give her one,” Walt growled. “I want to know where she is, and anyone attached to her case, the entire time. I don’t want to hear that Mrs. Hartel or anyone who is working with her on this case, has been harassing Henry at the _Red Pony_.”

“Henry is a big boy Walt, he’ll be okay.”

Walt grunted. “I mean it, Vic.”

The blond woman nodded, her face was serious and drawn. “I can see that.” 

She watched Ferg bundle up for food and coffee run to the _Busy Bee_ , waited until she heard the door close behind him before she turned to Walt. 

“Tell, me, is he really that rattled?” she asked, her mouth drawn in a tight line of anger. Walt sometimes forgot that there were other people out there who cared that Henry wasn’t dead. 

Walt sighed, running a hand over his jaw. “I don’t know.” 

“Ah,” Vic said, having drawn her own conclusions.

“What?” Walt snapped, "go on, out with it." 

“You're so used to shit happening to you that having it happen to Henry this time is shaking your world view.” Vic paused, “Also? Give yourself some time, give him some time, and cut yourself some slack for all the things I _know_ you’re blaming yourself for, but shouldn’t.”

“So, give it time and let everything work itself out?” Walt asked, snorting in amusement, “you sure you haven’t been talking to Henry, Vic?”

“No, why’d you think that?” she asked.

“Nothing, just, it reminds me of something Henry says,” Walt muttered, gesturing with defeated exasperation. “I hate it.”

“Maybe it’s me that’s rattled, not Henry, I don’t know,” Walt admitted, past a throat gone dry as he finally gave voice to the guilt weighing him down. “I failed, Vic, I failed him.”

Vic wrapped her arms around him in an unusual feature of support. It was comforting somehow even though her head didn’t reach his shoulders. “You’re not superman, Walt, you can’t save everyone.” 

Walt was silent, Vic was right, in his head he knew that. He’d learned a long time ago not everyone got to go home at the end of the day. It didn’t make any difference now when that failure struck so damn close to home. 

“Now, let's stonewall this bitch and get Holden locked up for a very, very long time,” Vic said, pulling away, her smile bright and fierce. 

Walt heard the click of high heels and knew that Mrs. Hartel had arrived. Only a lawyer would wear shoes like that in the middle of an Absaroka winter. 

“I am here to see Mr. Holden, you are Sheriff Longmire I presume?” Mrs. Hartel asked, holding out a perfectly manicured hand, nails painted a stark red to contrast with the black tracksuit she wore. Her blond hair was cut in a short bob, projecting a feminine but demure appearance. 

She looked at the department furnishings with ill-disguised horror. Or maybe she didn’t care enough to pretend. To maintain professional courtesy Walt shook her proffered hand. 

Vic smiled and walked right past the other woman. “Your kidnapper client is back here,” she said, “have fun.”

Mrs. Hartel fixed an assessing look on the blond deputy. “Alleged kidnapper,” she curtly admonished. “Innocent until proven guilty.”

“Didn’t anyone tell you, Mrs. Hartel?” Vic asked, smiling. “Mr. Holden confessed to second-degree kidnapping.”

“Has the supposed victim, this Mr. Standing Bear, been questioned since his return to this quaint little town?” Mrs. Hartel asked.

“I spoke with Mr. Standing Bear personally, he says this man and a Mr. Smithson, who is now deceased, kidnapped him and proceeded to hold him against his will for three weeks. I believe him.”

“Very well, sheriff, I will speak with my client now.”

“Yes ma’am,” Walt said, ushering Vic from the room to allow Mrs. Hartel time to speak with her client in private. 

Vic was texting Ferg as they planned to join him at the Busy Bee. Allow Mrs. Hartel time to converse with her client. 

“Hey, Walt?” Vic said, without looking up, “how come they kidnapped Henry, anyway?”

Walt stuffed his hands deeper in his jacket, the collar turned up against the brisk wind. “There’s this saying among the Peoples,” Walt said, a faraway look in his eyes. “Give thanks for the unknown blessings already on their way.”

“In other words…” Vic prodded.

“Mitch Holden is going to jail for a long time, Mrs. Hartel can’t change that, Vic. We have security footage of the kidnapping from the _Milton’s_ , and two witnesses that place Holden square in Absaroka, and Henry,” Walt said. “Let's just count our blessings on this one and give thanks that no one died.”

“Alright, Walt, whatever you say.”

Walt held the door to the _Busy Bee_ for Vic listening to the soft chime of the bell as it swung open. Ferg waved at them from the line. Vic wanted to cut and give Ferg the money for her order but the kid refused. Walt listened to them bicker back and forth like children for twenty minutes. In the end, it didn’t matter, the line went fast, and Vic reluctantly gave in shuffling to his side at the back in defeat. 

Walt patted her on the back in consolation. 

“Let the kid keep his principles, Vic.” 

“It’s not even cutting,” Vic argued, at length. 

Walt drowned out the rest and before he knew it he was ordering a _Signature Chicken_ and a dark roast coffee _._ Henry always said he ate too much red meat.

Walt seated himself at the back table Ferg and Vic automatically taking the surrounding chairs. He downed a gulp of the coffee, sighing as it went down like velvet, black as sin, and just how he wanted it. Walt grinned behind the mug remembering Henry and his unimpressed face glaring at him from the sidewalk but still offering him something hot to chase off the cold.

Imagining he could still taste sweet maple syrup and soft lips, Walt smiled. 

“Hey, Walt, whatcha thinking?” Vic asked, looking at him strangely.

Walt resisted the urge to blush under her steady gaze. She was the worst kind of nosy at the least favorable times, this woman, but damned if it wasn’t what made her a hell of a good deputy. He set down his coffee and took a bite out of his food.

Vic didn’t ask again, snorting in laughter as she chose to dig into her own meal. Walt felt relief bubble up inside his chest, glad she hadn’t pressed harder. He’d gotten snared in a daydream, _maybe’s_ and _what if’s_ spinning out. For the first time in a long time since Martha had died, he felt it _. Hope._ For himself, for Henry, and what could be.

Walt wondered if it was time to listen to his own words. They’d won this round, and the bad guys had lost. 

His plate half-finished Walt stood up.

“Hey, uh, Vic can I use your phone?” Walt asked, a bashful smile lighting up his face.

“Sure, Walt,” Vic said, her brows scrunched up, “everything okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” Walt replied, taking the phone and walking back onto the street where he wouldn’t have two nosy deputies hanging on his every word. Distantly he heard them whispering together. 

“Does he seem strange to you?” Vic murmured to Ferg. 

Walt didn’t hear what the kid said, the _Busy Bee_ door softly chiming as it swung open allowing him to shuffle along down the street, the phone ringing in his hand. 

Walt waited it out, listening as someone picked up the phone at the bar. “It is another beautiful day at the _Red Pony_ and continual soiree, this is Henry speaking.”

“Henry,” Walt said, before falling quiet. He had not out all of what he wanted to say. He hadn’t even thought about it, not really. He’d just taken a chance.

Now he was regretting it a touch, as he didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t his thing, cutting the breeze over the line.

“Walt,” Henry said, leaving a long pause for him to fill in the blanks if he chose. He didn’t so Henry filled up the silence for him. 

“Are you alright?” he asked.

Walt chuckled, “Yeah, I’m alright, why does everyone keep asking me that?”

“Well, I cannot speak for everyone, Walt, but in my experience, it is unusual for you to use a phone without emergency-related cause.” 

“Maybe I’m picking up new habits,” Walt argued, smiling.

“Hmm,” Henry said. In the background, Walt could hear the usual noises, clinking shot glasses, drunken laughter, and the low hum of voices in the backdrop. 

“Do you remember fishing up by _Bighorn Lake_?” Walt asked, “I reeled in that huge salmon, we smoked it over the fire and camped for three nights by the lake?” 

“I remember,” Henry said his voice shifting, just a smidge. Enough for Walt to know he was probably smiling, remembering their trip. 

“We always said we’d go back, but never did,” Walt finished, “why not?”

“Lack of time I suppose, where is this coming from Walt?” Henry asked. There was fresh concern framing his name into an admonishment. Walt heard it loud and clear, unspoken as it was.

“I have time now and you are your own boss, you can leave when you want. I don’t want to keep putting things off for tomorrow,” Walt said, emotions rising up and clogging his throat uncomfortably. He cleared his throat. 

“Please tell me you are not drunk calling me, Walter,” Henry bit out, sighing into the receiver in straining patience. 

“That’s not what this is, okay,” Walt muttered, scratching his neck as he exhaled. “Maybe the timing is all wrong, maybe there will never be a right time for us,” he continued, “but you and me, somewhere away from all this shit for a few days? That sounds good.”

Walt held his breath, waiting. Henry was quiet for a long time, doing some thinking of his own, and Walt kept his mouth shut letting him decide what he wanted.

“We did promise we would go back someday,” Henry finally answered. 

“It is a good idea, Walt.”

“Okay, we can work out the details later,” Walt said, “I only needed to know we were on the same page.”

“We are on the same page,” Henry said and this time Walt knew he was smiling. He couldn’t say _how_ he knew, just that he did. Walt also suspected they were talking in circles about more than _fishing_ but he left that alone for the time being.

“You never fail to surprise me at the strangest times Walter Longmire,” Henry quietly admitted before hanging up the phone. 

Walt imagined the laughter dancing in Henry’s dark eyes, the faint curve of amusement tilting his mouth, and walked back to the department satisfaction zinging through his blood, keeping him warm. Walt forgot the phone in his pocket until he was halfway back to the station. 

  
  



	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Henry woke up, gasping for air, covered in sweat, his pillow was damp with his own tears. He stared up at the ceiling in the grey twilight. The time read half-past three in small blue digits. Henry rolled onto his side, his legs drawn towards his chest, and allowed himself a few minutes to take it in, grieving for what he had lost.

_The Red Pony Bar & Grill: _

_“Behave,” Trig snarled, his fist connecting with Henry’s face with a meaty smack. Henry fell back onto the mattress, his ears ringing and coughing blood from his mouth._

_The man snapped his hips forward, burying himself deep inside Henry's unwilling body._

_Henry’s breath hitched in his throat, gasping, as he tried to twist away, yanking on the restraints that kept him in check. It was useless. Henry was held fast by an unbreakable metal. The other man's weight pinned Henry in place, snugly fitted between his legs._

_“You know, there’s not much interest in old Indians,” Trig muttered, his fingers digging into sun-tanned skin. “So I can’t just sell you to a whorehouse across the border as I might with some young thing.”_

_Henry squeezed his eyes shut._

_“Don’t like that idea, huh?” Trig asked, laughing under his breath. “Imagine, having to service all walks of life day in day out. No, all you have to worry about is pleasing me an’ Mitch here, see?” Trig explained, rolling his hips._

_“So you remember,” Trig warned, his finger gripping Henry’s chin. Forcing him to look at him when he spoke. “I can’t sell your ass, but I can sell your parts across the border, make more money than these sex-tapes doing it, too.”_

_Henry did not speak. His chest rose and fell in quick short breaths as tears slid down the corner of his eyes that he blinked away._

_“Spread your legs wider, whore,” Trig urged, hitching Henry’s leg higher. “Rock your hips, I know you’re no damn virgin, so fuck me,” Trig commanded._

_Henry sucked in a sharp breath, eyes widening._

_“Or I start selling you off in pieces, I’ll start with your kidney, you can live without that…” Trig sneered, “for a while.”_

_Henry felt himself splinter, cracked straight down the middle. His emotions shut down completely as he realized what he had to do to survive. The tears petered off, leaving wet tracks on his face as he looked at the man on top of him. Trig meant every word._

_Disgust welled up deep inside but Henry cast it off._

_He did not want to die, not like this._

_“What is it you want me to do?” Henry asked._

_Trig leaned down, close and intimate, as he whispered in Henry’s ear._

Henry woke up, gasping for air, covered in sweat, his pillow was damp with his own tears. He stared up at the ceiling in the grey twilight. The time read half-past three in small blue digits. Henry rolled onto his side, his legs drawn towards his chest, and allowed himself a few minutes to take it in, grieving for what he had lost. When the allotted time passed he resolved to set it aside. To hold onto the past would do no good. Sometimes letting it go was the only realistic option. Trig was six feet under and Mitch was on his way to lock up, it was more closure than many ever received for the crime of rape. He absently rubbed at his wrists, though they were healing well and Doctor Bloomberg did not think they would scar, they still ached. A phantom pain. Memories refusing to let go, waking him in the dead of night when his mind plays tricks with shadows in the dark.

Harboring deep reservations Henry found a local group therapy session a few days back. He had been very kindly informed by a white, blond-hair woman that the session was reserved for _survivors_. People who wanted to _help_ a loved one had their own special group. That had been the first and last time Henry had gone that route. 

Cat meowed from the foot of the bed. Small, sharp fangs made her irritation known for being jostled awake at such an unearthly hour. Cat wanted sleep, caring not at all about his own dark troubles.

“Do not start with me,” Henry scolded, throwing back the sheets and shedding his sweat-damp clothes on the floor as he walked naked toward the shower. 

Henry could still feel his attackers' hands. The way they bent him in cruel ways left him shuddering as he leaned against the shower tiles beneath the hot spray. He had been home almost a week and it still felt like only yesterday that he had escaped.

Mitch had pleaded guilty to aggravated kidnapping in the 1st degree while in Walt’s custody. The grapevine said it had been against Mrs. Hartel’s advice but the end result was a quick and speedy sentencing. Henry’s hands had shook at the idea of having to point out his kidnapper in court under all those watchful eyes. _What if someone saw the real truth?_ He had worried, but that was in the past. He did not need to. 

Holden pled guilty and cut a deal with the district attorney. Local gossips at the bar, mostly fresh faced paperboys and attorney assistants barely old enough to drink or shave, claimed the man received a good deal. 

_Good riddance,_ Henry thought, _so long as he is gone._

Henry suspected Walt’s hand in the speediness of Mitch’s _legally_ obtained confession and guilty plea but knew better than to question. No use looking a gift horse in the mouth, was there? 

Mitch was due to be shipped off to prison in a few hours. Henry would never have to see or hear the name Mitchel Alexander Holden ever again.

Henry grit his teeth, scrubbing harder at his skin until it was red and irritated from the harsh friction, he stopped short of breaking the skin. Walt would notice, there was little that escaped his keen eyes when he was actively looking. Henry was of two minds about that, honestly. On the one hand, Walt was more present in his life than he had been for some time and that was a welcome change. But, it also meant he would see Henry’s slip-ups. Those times when he was startled by things that amounted to little more than knocking chairs or slammed doors. Things that he had paid no mind to before _the incident_.

Walt was kind about it, of course, but he noticed. 

Henry shut off the water and redressed. He mentally prepared for a day of bodies bumping into him in the afternoon hustle and sudden, loud noises. He was getting better. But sometimes unexpected touches still set him off. 

Sam had tried to kiss him out of the blue in the kitchen at the height of rush hour and nearly been knifed for his trouble. 

_“Do you mind lowering the knife, Henry?” Sam asked, as he grinning nervously. Henry did not blame the man for his unease considering the point of his knife was resting against his belly a hair's breadth above his silver belt buckle. The wide dilation of his eyes, though, indicated it was something other than the fear that made his breath quicken._

_“You surprised me,” Henry said, quickly withdrawing and re-sheathing his knife._

_“Yeah, I am starting to see that was not such a smart thing to do,” Sam admitted, running a hand through his long, black hair. Henry took a moment to admire its black sheen and the rugged handsomeness of the man's face._

_His heart was invested elsewhere, but that did not make him blind._

_“Those white boys sure messed with your head, huh, Standing Bear?” Sam asked, stepping back to give Henry more room in the close space they inhabited._

_Henry shuddered. Had he become so easy to read? He hated to think he had._

_Sam patted him on the shoulder, oblivious to Henry's half-twitch at the gesture. Blind to how his body tensed the moment they made contact._

_“_ _It is a good thing Sheriff Longmire was able to make the charges stick.”_

_Sam shrugged, laughing at his own poor timing and the tensioned out of the room._

_“I took a shot, I missed. You win some, you lose some,” Sam said._

_He shrugged again and squeezed past Henry to help Amy White Feather bustle tables in the bar. Henry watched him go with curious eyes. He never would have suspected Sam’s interest had pointed in his general direction if not for that single ill-timed kiss._

Henry sighed, burying his face in his hands in mortification at the memory. The look on Sam’s face stuck with him, it had been somewhere between shock and this strange admiration. As if having a knife pressed to his belly both surprised _and_ excited him. Maybe the man had a kink. Either way, Henry did not care to pursue another, or different, relationship. The ragged threads of the one he _had_ were enough to occupy his time. It did shed light on the unexplainable tension Henry felt rolling off the other man whenever he was around him. Sam could not have chosen worse timing to make a move if he had tried. 

Walt came around more often. Sometimes they talked, sometimes they kissed but Henry never invited Walt to stay the night. Between the pair of them, there were far too many ghosts in their beds. Henry knew he needed to find a way to tackle his own ghosts before he had a shot at making _anything_ else work. 

Though, he had begun to wonder if that might not be for the best. 

_Walt deserves someone...better,_ he thought not for the first time while absently rubbing Cat’s ears while he perched on the mattress edge. _Someone who does not jump at shadows,_ he added, bitterly resenting his own inability to shrug _the incident_ off the same way he had shrugged off so many other bad experiences. He had promised Walt a fishing trip and he had not forgotten nor would he renege on his decision. He had not changed his mind, what was there to choose when his heart was decided? Still, he had doubts about how any real good could come of such an excursion. 

What he felt for the man was no trifling matter, it never had been, making it impossible to set aside without serious consideration. But Sam’s unexpected advances, and his own violent reactions, reminded Henry that not all was as well as he made it out to be. He took a breath, his hand on the door, and headed down to start the opening-up process for the day. It was early, the sun barely slinking over the winter-white mountain peaks, but sleep had exited the vicinity and would not return soon. 

Sam, Amy, and Catori trickled into the _Red Pony_ for the morning shift. It was not his turn for opening the bar but he had not seen the point in waiting for others when he was up and able to do so himself. They looked among each other, shrugged, and moved on without asking any questions. Henry smiled at them tentatively, please he would not be asked _‘if he was okay’_ yet again. He did not enjoy lying. 

“You look a little rough, boss,” Sam said, shooting a concerned look at Henry as he dragged the broom across the floor. “Not sleeping so well, huh, guess I would not either, in your place.” 

Sam, leaned against the broom. Henry wondered if the man was _intentionally_ putting his impressive arm muscles on display and mentally snorted. He was definitely too old for these games. 

“I, uh, know it is lame but chamomile actually helps,” Sam admitted, lowering his voice as Amy and Catori passed. The two women giggled, leaning into one another, far too engaged in their own conversation to care what anyone else was saying.

“Chamomile?” Henry repeated.

“Yeah, it works, I swear,” Sam vowed. “My little sister would have these terrible nightmares, refused to sleep, but drinking chamomile before bedtime helped calm her down so she would sleep,” he snorted, “she does not need it anymore, but still, it did work.”

“I did not know that about Nese,” Henry said, his eyes softening as he thought of tough-guy Sam babying little Nese, making her chamomile to help her sleep at night. She was a delicate girl who grew up strong in her brother's shadow. One of the few in her family who flew the nest and made it into _Laramie County College_. 

Sam shifted his eyes, becoming uncomfortable with Henry’s frank regard. He cleared his throat, breaking the moment before it became awkward. 

“Try it, boss, you need that beauty sleep.” 

“I will, thank you, Sam,” Henry quietly said, his attention drawn to the entrance. He caught the scent of black pepper and smoky guaiac blown in from the open door as their first customer arrived. Walt didn’t wear it very often, but Henry had not forgotten.

Walt beckoned, waving him towards the door with a gloved hand. Henry smirked, privately amused that the man had remembered them for once. It would be a shame for Walt to lose those talented digits of his to carelessness. 

Walt threw in an endearing head tilt, reminiscent of hunting dogs he had known, and Henry gave in. He quickened his steps, following the trail of Walt's tanned coat out into the pale morning dawn.

“Where are we going?” Henry asked crossing his arms to keep himself warm against the brisk temperatures. 

Walt tossed a grin over his shoulder, shook his head, but said nothing at all. Henry sighed and trudged after the man, curious despite himself. Henry tipped from curious and into irritation when he realized Walt had led him to his old _Ford Bronco_ . Walt had then proceeded to pop the door open, _for him_ , which was both strange and unsettling. The man was not acting like anything was wrong nor was he tensed up like a mountain lion before the pounce in anticipation of danger or imminent violence. Walt actually seemed more lighthearted than was customary.

Henry, not wishing to stamp on his good mood, decided to trust his friend and calmly went along.

Henry buckled in flicking a questioning look at Walt. The other man flashed him a soft grin but said nothing as he pulled the vehicle out onto the road leaving town some old school rock and roll playing on the radio. Henry had not spied fishing rods or camping gear so it was unlikely that he had been gently kidnapped for impromptu camping. Walt still was not speaking to him, but two could play that game. Henry leaned back in his seat, arms crossed over his chest. He was more than prepared to wait out the other man. 

It did not work out as Henry intended. Before long the warmth emitted from the heating, the low rumble of the engine, and the trace scent of wood-smoke and leather were all working in tandem. He felt warm and safe, the safest he had felt since _before_. Drowsiness was quickly settling in like Cat softly curling around his feet. Henry leaning against the window, his mind gently cradling off to sleep. A long time passed, nothing but the long road to nowhere and Henry’s quiet breathing to break the hush that fell over the cab as it trundled along. But as with all things, the past could not be outrun.

_Mitch wanted things he could not give. He asked for the impossible when already he had taken everything. Henry tried, he did, because there came a point when fighting was useless. There was no shame in surrender, he told himself, even if he did not completely believe the lies he comforted himself with in the dark._

_“Can you pretend you want me?” Mitch grunted, nipping the back of his neck._

_Henry cringed, gritting his teeth as the man set a brutal pace._

_He could feel Mitch's smirk pressed into his skin. “Pretend I’m him, that cowboy lover you’ve got,” he demanded, reaching around to paw at Henry’s erection, soft and disinterested in the man having sex with his body._

_“No,” Henry replied, adrenaline spiking and fear surging through his blood. “No,” he repeated because consent was the only thing he could refuse Mitch, that Mitch could not forcibly take._

_Mitch grunted his displeasure, burying himself deep as he could as he came inside him. Henry repeated the word, again and again underneath his breath, until the weight pressing him down was gone and he was alone._

_It did not matter. Henry felt his hands long into the night -- a brand upon his skin -- and the deep burn that went beyond the physical._

Walt kept saying his name and he sounded strange, his voice rough and hoarse as though he had been shouting into a storm. Walt sounded very alarmed. That was the first thing Henry noticed when he came awake with a gasp, another _“No”_ lingering in the air. The second was that the truck was idling off to the side of the road. Walt looked pale, even for a white guy. 

Henry frowned, taking stock of his situation. It had not turned out so well for him the last time he had woken in a truck on an unknown section of highway. But no, this was different. He was with Walt this time. Henry reddened, his face flushing hotly when he noticed the damp wetness on his cheeks. _Shit, it happened again,_ Henry thought, having realized what had happened to alarm Walt so. He looked as though he had been cut to the quick.

Henry wanted to sink into a hole and pull the lid over him, but no such thing happened. 

This time Walt did not ask him if he was okay. In fact, Walt didn’t say anything, his hands flexing on the wheel, and a deep frown carved into his face. Henry took the interim to compose himself and angrily cleared away the evidence to his weakness.

“I’m sorry,” Walt said. 

Henry folded his arms across his chest, knowing full well it had nothing to do with the cold and calmed the erratic pounding of his heart before addressing Walt.

“You have nothing to be sorry for, Walt,” Henry countered, refusing to look at the man. “And that is the truth.”

“Yeah?” Walt snorted. “It doesn’t feel that way to me.”

“A wolf can don a sheepskin but it is not a sheep,” Henry shot back. “Feelings can disguise themselves very cleverly, but they are not facts.”

“Do not accept blame that is not yours,” Henry said, his voice little more than a strained whisper. The thought had not occurred to him that Walt might blame himself for the men's actions. 

_Perhaps I should have,_ Henry realized whispers of disappointment with himself rising to the surface of his mind. _Of course, Walt would view this whole shitty situation as a personal failing, of course,_ he repeated, resisting the urge to throw his hands in the air in the ultimate gesture of frustrated _\-- pointless --_ anger. 

“I will only speak of this, this one time,” Henry ground out, running a hand through his hair, resolutely staring out the window seeing the shadows and the light dance across the snow. 

“What happened to me was not your fault.”

Walt did not argue with him but Henry was not certain he heard him. His throat full of unwanted emotions he said nothing further. His voice would crack and break if he spoke now and he could not bear that. 

Neither man looked at the other after the words were spoken, guilt allowed voice and summarily dismissed. Both remained unsure what to say from this point on, each too afraid of what their expressions might unwisely reveal. Henry felt raw, broken open, and exposed, the only consolation he possessed stewing in the uncomfortable silence that permeated the cab was the knowledge that it was not a weakness the man beside him would exploit. That, at least, was something he could rely upon.

For all that there was little more than a foot separating them Walt might as well have been miles away, deep in his own mind, Henry was almost relieved that some things never changed. Walt wanted to help, but he did not know how to. Henry did not blame Walt for this. How could he when he did not even know how to help _himself_?

“Can I at least be sorry that I can’t do more to fix this?” Walt finally asked, his words tumbling into the stillness and breaking it. The seat creaked beneath Walt as he turned to face Henry so that they were eye to eye.

“Can I be sorry that I didn’t kill them both when I had the chance?” Walt rasped, his voice thick with emotion.

“You are the best and most honorable man I know, do not apologize for that!” Henry snapped, bridging the distance between them when he snatched Walt’s hand in an unbending grip. 

It felt important that Walt understand what he said now. This was not his fault, and his actions were the correct ones. Henry wished the men dead, of course he did, but not at the expense of Walt’s honor. Never that. 

“You would not be the man I cherish as my own heart if you were any other than yourself.” 

Walt looked down at their tightly joined hands, his eyes wide in stunned silence. Walt's grip tightened around him, squeezing back, and Henry allowed himself to relax. His words had been heard and understood 

“Alright, I won't,” Walt murmured, his voice shaky. “But, Henry? Let me help, please?”

“I do not know how.”

“We can figure it out if that’s what you want.”

Henry blinked away the sting building up behind his eyes. 

“Alright,” he said, parroting Walt’s own words. And if his voice was more wobbly than he would like and his hand was shaking in Walt’s grasp neither man commented. 

“Did you really drive around for three hours so I could get some sleep?” Henry asked arching his eyebrow as he abruptly changed the subject. It lacked finesse but he did not care. He wanted to set it firmly in his past. Besides, Henry recognized the little clearing looming ahead and was curious if Walt did as well. 

He shot a disbelieving look at Walt. 

_Had he forgotten?_ Henry wondered. It was what locals called _Blackbird’s Bluff_ , a steep overhang that looked down on a small hidden valley below. 

He and Walt had come out here many, many times as boys. To talk sometimes, but mostly for teenage necking. This was the very spot that he had lost what was left of his virginity in the back of Walt’s old pickup truck. 

“Coincidence?” Walt said, but it was more of a question than a statement. Henry snorted, looking out at the view, remembering, happier -- _no, simpler_ \-- times. 

“You are not getting lucky tonight, Walter Longmire,” Henry growled, but there was no real bite to his words. 

“Huh. I kinda figured I was pretty damn lucky already,” Walt mused aloud, squeezing Henry’s hand. The hand he still had not released. Henry decided he did not mind, he liked the largeness of Walt’s hand enclosing his own and the rough calluses from Walt’s dabbling with carpentry. 

Henry rolled his eyes even as his heart gave a little kick in his chest. It was a much-needed reminder that not all things were ruined, not when he still had this. Walt grinning like a boy again, talking sweetly as he knew while holding his hand at _Blackbird’s Bluff_ \-- just the same as when they were boys discovering that it was not only girls they liked kissing.

If this had been a movie Walt would have held his hand all the way back to town, but this was not a movie, and Henry had no desire to end up in a ditch. The roads were slippery with black ice, Walt needed both hands at the wheel. Henry yawned leaning against the side door, the lock jabbing into his shoulder. He felt rested, in a way he had not been since his return. He snuck a look at Walt, but he did not notice, he was watching the road as he should be.

Looking, because he could, and there was no one to call him on it, Henry admired the bullheaded determination of his friend, the laugh lines at the corner of his mouth, and the way he worried his lower lip between his teeth when they hit bumps in the road. 

“What?” Walt asked, resignation tinging his words. He probably expected a cutting response but Henry was not in the mood for that. 

“Nothing,” he assured, tipping his head back into the seat, his eyes falling closed. “Nothing at all,” he repeated, yawning into his closed fist.

There were only a few minutes left until they would be within city limits. Henry cracked his eyes open. 

“Walt?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you, this was a good plan,” Henry conceded. “I had...” he stopped, pausing to weigh his words. Walt shot a curious look at him, nothing but ill-disguised concern on his face. “I am not sleeping so well, which you already knew apparently,” Henry finally admitted, with a humorless smile. 

“Yeah, I knew,” Walt nodded. “I didn’t want to push too hard, always figured you’d say something if you wanted.”

“And yet here we are,” Henry sniffed. 

“Hey, I didn’t bring it up, but since we’re having this discussion…when did talking _to me_ , coming _to me_ , become the last resort? Something you think you can’t do, huh?” Walt demanded, shaking his head. 

He looked honestly confused, wondering what wrong turn he had taken to cause this, and Henry lowered his hackles. 

Henry rubbed his forehead, too tired to fight. 

“It is not you,” Henry quietly confessed. “I mean it, Walter,” Henry repeated when the other man snorted in derision. Either he did not believe him or he was displeased with Henry’s answer. In either case, it was all he had to offer. 

Henry could see a tidal wave building up in Walt and remained silent. He was content to let Walt collect his thoughts even as he wondered what was going to spill out of his mouth. 

“Fine, it’s not me, let's go with that,” Walt snapped. He paused, taking a breath, calming whatever thoughts were running around in his head. 

Henry watched him curiously but did not interrupt. Walt would begin when he was good and ready and not before. 

“Henry, shit as all this is, I am in _your_ corner, okay? Talk, don’t talk -- I don’t really care. I just want you to know that you _can_. It won’t change anything about -- about how I think of you.”

Henry wanted to believe him, more than he had ever wanted to believe anything. But he could not. He did not even think of _himself_ the same anymore. How could he expect a man like Walt to not have a changed view? Henry did not believe it was possible.

“Do not make promises you cannot keep.”

Walt pulled the truck over to the side of the road again. Henry glanced around, relieved to see they were alone on the road. Nothing but the blurry hint of buildings in the far off distance. Walt laid his hand down on the seat between them, close to his leg, but not touching. He wanted to, he wanted to be able to offer some form of physical comfort, Henry knew that much, so he reached back.

There was no need for them to both be hurting over this. 

“Henry, I mean it,” Walt said, trying to infuse his words with that belief. It made them resonate, soothe the wounds Henry still felt inside, though he could not yet believe it for himself. 

Walt squeezed his hand, gently, with a desperate plea in his blue eyes. 

“Tell me you believe that, at least.”

“I believe you, Walt,” Henry breathed, hoping Walt would not hear the lie.

What else could he say to such a meaningful entreaty that would not do more harm than good? A white lie, just this once, to spare both their hearts from breaking. He wanted to believe. That ought to count for something. 

“I will be late for my shift,” Henry said, clearing his throat. 

“Liar,” Walt grunted.

Henry’s heart jumped to his throat for a moment but quickly settled. Walt shot him an annoyed glance, his mouth turned down in a cutting frown.

Henry sank down into his seat, wilting under Walt’s blatant disapproval. 

“I talked to Sam before hustling you out the door, you have the evening shift today.”

“First stalking, now you are speaking to my staff regarding my schedule, tsk, tsk,” Henry scolded. “what next, are you going to have Ruby watching me?”

Walt belted out a laugh. 

“Why, you need some watching?” Walt asked, his blue eyes brightening.

“No,” Henry resolutely denied. “Do not get any funny ideas, Walt, I mean it.”

Walt was still chuckling when he slowed to a rolling stop outside the _Red Pony_. 

“I’d kiss you, but then there’d be a scandal,” Walt said, smirking.

Henry chuckled, unbuckling his seatbelt. “I would kiss you, but then Vic would shoot me.”

“Vic?” Walt sputtered. 

“I see you have not noticed then,” Henry surmised, casting a fond but reproving look at Walt who looked back, his brows bunched in confusion. 

“Seriously, Walter?”

“Why would that make Vic…” Walt stopped. 

Henry saw it happen, and smiled slyly at his friend, his arms resting on the metal frame of the _Bronco_. He had put on a little weight and muscle since his return. Henry looked good, and he knew it. 

Walt noticed what he was doing, too. A tiny smile, a brief flash of teeth. The moment understanding had dawned. Walt’s mouth shaped an ‘o’ of surprise. Sometimes it was the small things that slipped past him unnoticed. 

Vic and her crush were one of those small things.

Henry shut the door on Walt and his dawning understanding, waving as he walked away. He felt the familiar burn of Walt’s eyes follow him to the door. The ground between them remained rocky. Poorly defined. But the man would return, Henry was certain of that much. He was not in this alone. It was a comfort. Henry held that knowledge close and let the rest wash over him. 

Catori knocked into him during the evening commotion and he did not miss a step. The local drunk broke a shot glass and he did not jump out of his skin. This was progress. A few baby steps forward were still better than three steps back. Henry’s shift was almost finished when his good humor came crashing down, a sandcastle built on the shores as the tide rushed inland. 

Henry placed the orange _‘closed for cleaning’_ cone outside the men's room and got to work. A customer strode in blatantly ignoring the large, orange cone requesting their temporary absence. Henry resisted the urge to groan aloud at people's inability to follow simple instructions. Henry turned to address the man, a plastic smile fixed onto his face. The mop clattered to the floor. Shock coursed through Henry and he fell back a step upon seeing who it was standing in the dim lighting.

“You,” Henry breathed when he found his voice. 

Blood drained from Henry’s face as he instinctively back-peddled his shoulder colliding with the wall. Cold sweat formed on his brow as he surreptitiously reached for the knife tucked at the small of his back.

The man standing at the entrance wordlessly kicked the door shut with his heel, flicking the lock mechanism into place before turning back around. He stepped out of the shadow, but Henry already knew who it was. 

He knew that face in the gloom. He knew the shape of him. The smell, cologne so strongly applied it made Henry’s head throb unpleasantly. It was inescapable, confined within such close quarters. How could he forget? This man still visited in the midnight hours when Henry's mind drifted into dark corners of memory. The last ghost, refusing to be exorcised. But this was no nighttime trick, shadows come calling. 

This was a flesh and blood man. 

“Hello, Henry.”

_To be continued..._


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Tick-tock,” the man laughed, tilting Henry’s head back. He pressed his thumb against Henry’s lips. “You’re on the clock.”
> 
> “You want something,” Henry stated, refusing to lower his gaze. “You would not be here if you did not want something that you believe I can give.”
> 
> “Hmm, not so stupid after all,” the man laughed. “Guess Trig didn’t get _everything_ right about you, in the end. Well go on then _Sherlock_ , elucidate me. What do I want?” he asked, his pupils dilating as they focused on Henry’s mouth.

_The Red Pony Bar & Grill:_

Henry’s wrists ached in phantom pain. Ugly memories flashed past his eyes as he stared at that lean, youthful face. Why did his monster’s have to possess such pretty outward skins? It made it all so much harder to stomach somehow. Oh yes, he knew that face. He knew that voice. It was smooth and calm, rational. The man had made it sound as though all Henry had to do was precisely what he asked and everything would turn out alright. 

_Liars, the lot of them. Nothing but a pack of deceivers,_ Henry thought unconsciously rubbing his wrists. They burned with the memory of metal biting into flesh. He would never forget being helpless and restrained. Or the men that forcefully introduced him to a fear he had never known before. A new kind of pain that gnawed away from the inside out. Left adrift in his own mind and body.

“You’ve caused a lot of trouble,” the man admonished, mouth curling in a cruel smile. As if Henry were some kind of child being taken to task for mischief. As if it was _him_ who had done something wrong. 

Henry’s hand clenched into a fist. He practically radiated anger and an undercurrent of slow dread sweeping over him. 

“Get out!” he snarled. 

The man smiled blandly, holding up his phone. He acted as if he had not heard a word from Henry’s mouth. 

Henry audibly ground his teeth. More likely it was that he did not care to be ordered about by his late friends _Indian Whore_. He still vividly recalled the last time he had seen this man; his state of undress and the accompanying sting of humiliation at what swiftly followed.

Henry frowned, brows drawn in confusion staring at the device the man had brought to his attention once more. It’s bright white digits were engaged in a countdown. There were 29 minutes on the clock. 

“Go on, ask, I can see you trying to work it out.”

“Very well, what is that?” Henry guardedly asked. Did he even want to know? He suspected he did not. Theories were spinning through his head ranging from it being a handheld bomb to some other obscure and malignant mischief. 

The man chuckled. 

“I was going to make you drop the kidnapping charges against poor Mitchell but, well, a bit late for that now that he’s let the cat out of the bag. And Hector, he didn’t do so hot either, did he?” the man prodded. 

“I noticed something interesting, watching the local news,” he continued, his mouth stretching into a thin-lipped grin. 

Henry resisted the urge to flinch, to back away. There was nowhere left for him to go with the wall pressed into his back. Cold seeped into his skin even through the thick layer of clothing.

“There was not a single whiff of rape or sexual misconduct in Mitchell’s case. I have to ask, how did you swing that I wonder? Did you fuck the sheriff, too?”

The thought of this man speaking of Walter _like that_ pushed Henry over the edge. The fear which held him in place faded into the backdrop. Anger boiling over Henry tackled the man into the sink grazing him across the ribs with his hunting knife. The man hissed, patting at the tear in his coat. 

His hand came away tacky and red.

Snarling he grabbed hold of Henry by the hair, slamming his face into the porcelain staining it red with blood. 

His lucky blow left Henry reeling, stumbling sideways into a stall. His vision danced out of focus and there was a loud ringing echoing in his ears. 

“Shit,” Henry muttered as the man took the knife from his numb hands, throwing it into one of the stalls. Henry heard it clank against the floor and despaired at its loss.

He did not feel so well. 

“You’re on the clock,” the man grimly mused, his grip on Henry’s raven-black hair tightening further. 

The man had his hand tangled close to his scalp, it stung painfully when he tightened his fist. Using it as a handhold he was able to put Henry down on his knees. Henry swayed, unsteady, but did not try to rise. Lacking coordination he remained where he was. A tiny part of him wondered why he kept being put in this position, on his knees, that same insidious inner voice whispering maybe he _deserved_ it. 

The bathroom floor tiles were spinning and his brain was muddled in a deep fog. Henry considered the fact that he probably had a concussion. Fighting was useless. He had learned that already, had he not? 

The man shook him and Henry remembered the thread of questioning. 

“Mitch did not want sexual assault _and_ aggravated kidnapping charges, not with where he was going. He was caught and he knew it,” Henry grit out. 

“Now explained,” Henry demanded, gesturing toward the device. 

“Oh, this?” the man laughed, wiggling his cell phone in Henry's face. 

This time the device had a picture to go with the time count. Henry felt his gorge rise and fought the urge to throw up. It was the kind of image that could ruin him and the asshole knew it. 

Henry could distantly recall the _click-click_ of a camera amidst the mess of grabbing hands, and the painful jab of a dick penetrating his body. He had been more preoccupied with his own _nakedness_ and the man who was panting out fetid breath on top of him at the moment. But he remembered that _click-click_ now.

Henry wanted to shout and cry and curl up in a ball and just die. But he did not. He glared up at the man who had him by the hair. He should have known there would be more evidence squirreled away somewhere. 

He could see through his blurred vision that there were 24 minutes left on the clock. Henry stiffened. He angled his body as far away from the other man as he could in the small space. It required the patience of saint’s to not attack the man. He did not for two reasons, he did not believe he could win and the man had the kind of photos of him that in a place like Absaroka would have the disastrous effect of a _sex-tape scandal._

No one would care about consent. Who had it, who did not. All that people would _really_ see would be the explicit and non-heterosexual nature of the photographs. 

Cold dread swept through him as slowly, slowly he began to realize the direction this was headed. He was in no position to bargain his way out. 

_Fuck, not again, not now,_ Henry through casting his eyes about, stalling for time as he tried to think past his ringing ears. Resignation began to set in slumping the proud line of his shoulders. 

“Tick-tock,” the man laughed, tilting Henry’s head back. He pressed his thumb against Henry’s lips. “You’re on the clock.”

“You want something,” Henry stated, refusing to lower his gaze. “You would not be here if you did not want something that you believe I can give.”

“Hmm, not so stupid after all,” the man laughed. “Guess Trig didn’t get _everything_ right about you, in the end. Well go on then _Sherlock_ , elucidate me. What do I want?” he asked, his pupils dilating as they focused on Henry’s mouth.

“I own a profitable bar, therefore I can only assume what you really want is money,” Henry reasoned, forcing back the mad panic building in his chest. 

_Show no weakness,_ he reminded himself, staring up into empty black pits. _Tick-Tock_ man, as Henry had begun to call him, had shark eyes, cold and merciless. The man hummed absently, his free hand tracing the curve of Henry’s jaw. 

It was not a no but Henry knew it was far from all the man had come here looking for. He had locked the bathroom door and his considerably larger frame blocked the only exit. 

The phone in his pocket was his leverage. 

Blackmail and sex were a powerful incentive.

“Not _all_ I want, Henry,” he chided. “I remember something Trig said to me the last time we spoke, something along the lines of… _you had the best cock-sucking lips this side of Absaroka_ ,” he murmured, his breathing becoming thick and heavy. 

“Did I get it right?” he asked, thumbing at the button of his blue denim jeans. “I think I want to see if Trig was right, Henry.”

Henry swallowed down the fear budding in his chest. It was his RV nightmare made real. Only it was so much worse. He _could_ fight, his hands were not tied. But he knew if he did so this man would _ruin_ him with those images on the phone. Walt was right about the damn things after all. 

_‘A dangerous nuisance, to carry around a device that can track your every move and lets people barge into the quiet moments of your life,’_ Walt had murmured, breath tickling his ear. _‘Wouldn’t want me to get a call right now, would you?’_ he asked, looking down at Henry as they grappled in the bedsheets, legs, arms, and bodies entwined. 

Tears burned at the back of his eyes. Henry blinked them away, banishing them and the unbidden memory to the recess of his mind. Somewhere safe, tucked far from these sordid happenings. 

“You know what happens if I don’t get what I want,” the man prodded, lowering his zipper. The sound seemed very loud in the small space. “You don’t want that, do you?”

Henry shook his head. Though he knew not how he did it. Every muscle in his body was clenched up as though he were soldered out of stone. 

“Get to work, Henry, and make it good or all your friends at the bar will see for themselves how Trig and Mitch had you over the mattress. _Penrose_ won’t be much of a mystery anymore -- everyone is still so curious, you know” he chuckled. “There’s 10 minutes on the clock, how disappointing. I had hoped for longer, ah well.”

Henry wanted to stall, he wanted to say _“no”_ but he could not. If his choice was to refuse and have what happened to him at _Penrose_ exposed in technicolor detail to the whole town or giving another man a blow job in the restroom of his own bar, well, he had been forced to do worse already.

Henry dropped his gaze, the fight gone out of him. He pulled the man's erection free of red boxer briefs with shaky hands. He desperately wanted the door to miraculously bang open to save him the making of this terrible choice but it did not. 

He thought of Walt and felt the threatening sting of tears. He had held Walt’s hand only hours ago and here he was, on his knees, with his hand now around another man’s dick. He wanted to be sick. 

His stomach flopped in his belly. Something must have shown on his face because the man snorted, slapping him across the face. It did not really hurt. Little more than a bright sting of pain barely felt against the churning tapestry of his thoughts which wounded him so much more deeply. 

“Oh stop it, it’s not the end of the world, you could have been done by now.”

There was a bang on the door as if to answer an unspoken prayer.

Henry’s eyes widened, flicking up to the man in front of him.

The man snorted. 

“Ah-ah,” he whispered.

“Hey boss, Catori thinks you got lost in there! You need some help, boss?” Sam called out, turning the handle but finding the door locked from within. 

Henry wanted to laugh at the man's boldness. 

Catori would have said no such thing. An absurd need for laughter bubbled in his chest but he resisted. Sam would surely break in the door if his boss started cackling like a madman in a locked restroom. Life was not without its strange amusements, was it? 

Sam was trying to wheedle into his life, and he chose now, when he was forced to kneel for another man, another man who was not _Walt_ , to try. 

Sam Little Wolf had the worst timing, ever. 

“Make him go away,” _Tick-Tock_ man commanded. “Or the whole town sees your intimates,” he softly threatened, all the more dangerous for his calm rationale. 

Henry cleared his throat in an effort to sound normal. Whatever the hell that had become after _the incident_. He still had not quite figured that one out yet.

“Catori is not the one paying you,” Henry snapped. 

He imagined the unhappy, kicked puppy, look that would be on Sam’s face and felt his heart sink but there was no helping some hurt feelings right now. 

“I will be done cleaning when I am done. Until then, get back to work.”

His last hope dwindled, a flickering light brutally pinched out, when he heard Sam shuffle away.

“Tick-tock,” the man chuckled, shoving his hips into Henry’s face. “I want that mouth,” he said, his fingers gracing Henry’s lips, “on my cock.”

The man chuckled at his own joke. 

Henry closed his eyes in resignation and did what he had been tasked to do. Tentative, he leaned forward, pubic hair rubbing his face as he gave it a lick. He tasted sweat, natural from being confined to boxers, but found him otherwise clean. The ordinary, musky smell of male arousal. 

_It could be worse,_ Henry consoled. _It could be better, too,_ said the other part of him that had decided long ago that the man he preferred to touch, to taste, so intimately wore a Colt .45 strapped to his hip, and a beaver-brim Stetson. 

The man above him groaned impatiently and Henry took him into his mouth. Disgust and shame well up but he kept his motions consistent, trying to please. The sooner he could get him off the sooner he would leave.

Apparently he was not _good_ enough. 

“This sucks, and not in a good way,” the man snarled. “You’re old enough to have the experience, use it!”

Shitty as the whole situation was it still dinged his pride. He had never received complaints of this nature before. Walt had _never_ complained about his bedroom talents. Henry inwardly groaned, pressing such thoughts away. Now was not the time for such things.

_Tick-Tock_ man snorted his frustration muttering incoherently under his breath. Henry was to emotionally shut down to pay attention to the specifics of what the man said. Everything Henry had was focused on the mantra of _‘do not fight it, let it happen.’_

The man grabbed his hair, twisting it in his fist, as he forced him forward until his nose mashed against his groin and he was choking, his airway blocked. Henry could not breathe. His lungs burned, eyes watering, as he struggled to take in air around the intrusion, nerves screaming for oxygen. 

“There it is, there’s the whore Mitch was bragging about,” _Tick-Tock_ man praised, his thumb brushing at the drool trickling down Henry’s chin. “You look so fucking pretty, choking on my cock.”

Henry gasped, inaudible around the object in his mouth, the words bouncing around his head, the same one’s Mitch had been so damnably fond of whispering in his ear. Finally, finally, the man grunted, spilling down his throat. 

Henry frantically tried to shove him off, to spit it out but the man did not allow it. His grip at the back of Henry's neck kept him pinned in place. With no other choice, he swallowed, and only then did _Tick-Tock_ man pull out. 

Henry took a desperate gulp of air, his chest heaving as he leaned back away from the man and into the wall, shaking. 

“There, all done,” the man said, patting his head as if he were some kind of dog performing tricks for treats.

Henry remained unresponsive, his breath still levelling out. 

“One last thing, and you never have to see me again, alright. Show up at _Motel 6_ , only one in this backwater town, bring 10,000 cash. I know you can cover it from the looks of this place. You seem to be clever enough, I bet you have a stash saved up incase profits turn sour. Do what I ask, we'll do a little swap, the money for the videos and images.”

And then he was gone, unlocking the door and breezing out into the bar, winking at waitresses and buying a drink. 

Henry stayed where he was, on his knees, breathing hard and fast as he gathered his reserves. There was not much left, to be honest. It took a few tries but eventually he made it back to his feet. A few more minutes and he made it to the sink. He stumbled over to it, spitting out the remnants of semen sticking to his mouth. Watching it swirl down the drain on autopilot, hands braced on the porcelain. He took a paper towel and cleaned off the blood. He did not need people asking questions.

Having sufficiently collected himself Henry exited the bathroom, freezing at the sight of the man lounging against the bar drinking a beer. He looked perfectly at ease, happy even. 

Henry wanted to throttle _Tick-Tock_ man for his nerve. He jumped a little when Sam quietly sidled up, stopping at his side. The other man had noticed the direction of his eyes and frowned in turn. 

“Trouble?” he asked, cutting a glance toward the man at the bar.

“Leave it alone, Sam,” Henry grit out, waved him off, and went back to work as if the man watching him from the bar was just another shady customer. He had dealt with worse than uncomfortable stares on this night. This would not be what broke him. 

The rest of the evening passed in a blur. Henry knew he spoke with Bob and Sam at some point in the night after what happened in the men’s room but could not for the life of him recall the specifics of what he said. He went through the motions, did, and said the right things, and for once no one asked him if he was okay. Henry considered it was probably for the best. He did not believe he could have constructed a credible lie. Not to his best friend, Walter Longmire who had stopped in for a drink with Vic, to be sociable, before heading home for the night. 

It was too busy for Henry to hang around and talk and he was grateful. Tonight it was _him_ who was short on words. He believed he might still be in shock, he certainly felt like it. Sweaty palms, rapid-fire pulse, and a mental fog which served to keep him from thinking too long on the hard floor beneath his knees and the hand tangled in his hair. 

Walt was watching him, a look on his face that Henry interpreted as concern but he did not approach Henry or try to make him talk. For this, Henry felt his heart swell with gratitude. He did not think he could endure speaking with Walt right now. It was too soon and his pain was too raw. Perhaps Walt's motto was discretion being the better part of valor tonight. Either way he was relieved when Walt collected his hat, paid up, and left. The barroom suddenly felt both colder and larger in his absence and it did not go unnoticed. Henry paused, hands froze over cleaning glasses in the kitchen and considered calling Walt back under some pretense or another but shame stilled his tongue. 

He played his part, smiled when smiling was required, and got on with his job. The last customer shuffled out the door with a cheerful goodbye. Henry watched with resentment budding under his skin. Bob’s son picked him up and hauled his father off the floor and presumably stuffed him into the waiting car. Betty danced to another tune on the jukebox in the corner and when the final strains of _Elvis Presley_ faded out she waltzed out of the bar and into the night. She looked happy, they all did, and Henry resented them for it. He also hated that he did.

He was _not_ okay. 

The bar locked up for the night Henry collapsed into a chair. He felt cold and numb, but mostly numb. He had bottled it up for hour upon hour, and now it was time to pop the cork, see what fell out. 

_Nothing good, that is for damn sure,_ Henry thought. He buried his face in his hands, soundless sobs quaking his shoulders. In three weeks he had become quite used to making no noise. To being ill-used. He considered pouring himself a drink but was self-aware enough to know it would be a terrible idea. 

Henry also considered calling Walt, dragging him from the beautiful nothingness of sleep but dismissed the thought before it could tempt him to follow through with actions. He had just been on his knees for another man. It smacked of betrayal, no matter the circumstances, and he could not convince himself otherwise. 

Walt _definitely_ deserved better. 

Henry sighed feeling the toxic combination of raw anger and bitter resentment pouring through his veins. It did not matter what Walter _deserved_ , did it? Henry knew he would not let the man go unless he asked to be set free of _them_. He was not so selfless as that.

If there was to be a sort of end for them, as there may well be someday, it would not be born from this. For better, for worse. Henry loved him too damn much to be so sensible. Every other part of him felt broken, he had no desire to toss his heart onto the pyre, too. 

He desperately wanted to take a shower in bleach and rinse his mouth out with soap. He had not stopped moving since what happened, if he stopped he would be forced to think about what had really happened. A bad move to make when he had to keep up appearances at the bar. No one was watching now and still, he did not want to think about what had happened, what it meant for tomorrow.

10,000 was a hell of a lot to throw away on a blackmailer who might still double-cross him and ask for more. Odds were high he would ask for more than money, too. Henry was not Jacob Night Horse. He did not have the luxury of tossing that much into the toilet. It would leave his livelihood at risk. The bar he had built up from scratch would be left without a safety net to land on if business plunged.

“Dammit!” Henry cursed overturning the table. 

It crashed onto its side with a loud bang. 

His adrenaline spiked, fear was surging through his blood. It did not matter that he was the only one here. Or that he had been the one to cause the commotion. There it was. 

Fear, trailing its cold fingers up his spine. 

Henry had been prepared to let the past go -- but the past was not letting _him_ go this time around. He was hollow and emptied out from the inside; a strong East wind could blow him right over and he loathed himself for it. He despised what they had brought him to. This hollowed-out caricature who jumped at shadows and was unable to tolerate common, social touching without flinching. To the point where he was left to dread what his own reaction to sex since _the incident_ might be. 

For the first time, he felt real anger, at _them_ , at _himself_ , simmer beneath his skin. He was burning under a sheet of ice. Henry kindled it, stoking this bitter-cold flashpoint, as he remembered all the shit he had survived. Mitch whispering in his ear, all pretty nonsense. Trig snarling as he squeezed his throat, death in his eyes. _Tick Tock_ man who had put him on his knees in his own home, taking both less and so much _more_ than either. 

Henry stared down at the mess he had created; the overturned table, the knocked back chairs, and felt a frustrated scream itching at the back of his throat, clawing for release. He dispassionately quelled it. He leashed his emotions, sharply banking them, with bars of rigid restraints. There came a time when enough was _enough_. This was it for him. 

Henry calmly walked to his office in the back and pulled out a seat, fist perched beneath his chin as he started to plan. Smiling grimly he stared down at the wallet he had stowed in his back pocket all night. He turned it over, again and again, just looking at it. It was expensive, real leather, a soft, supple black that folded easily to the touch. Its contents revealed everything he could hope to know, a name, an address, a college ID, and three hundred dollars cash. 

Henry counted out the Benjamins, folded them over, and stuck them in his desk drawer. He had been forced to play the whore he might as well treat himself to the payments owed. Three hundred in cash did nothing to absolve the wretched feeling stirring in his gut, but it satisfied his petty need to take _something_ back. He wondered if the man who blackmailed him knew his wallet was missing and that it had been _him,_ the Indian Whore _,_ who had lifted it. 

_Would he still be so brave, with his mask of anonymity removed?_ Henry sighed, running a tired hand over his eyes. He did not think so. Bullies were rarely brave men, this was why they traveled in packs and did their wrongs beneath the cover of a mask. Henry suspected he would not be so brave at their next meeting. 

Henry knew what had to be done. It was very simple, in the end. He blamed sleepless nights and recent events that had left him swinging wildly from one spectrum to another for not seeing it sooner. Henry snatched up the keys to his truck, Walt had found it twenty miles out of town, half in a ditch while answering a call. _It_ , at least, hadn’t been too badly damaged. He tucked his _Glock 17_ into the belt of his pants. Henry was done being caught with his pants around his ankles. It would not happen again. 

It was dark outside, which came as no surprise as it was well past two in the morning. Henry braced against the wind's fangs biting against the collar of his jacket. It was gusting against his face in violent torrents, half blinding him as he made a beeline for his truck which was parked around back.

Henry threw himself into the cab and pulled the door shut behind, shaking the rain from his hair, as he started the engine.

It was just as well the weather was so awful. This meant the likelihood of people venturing beyond the warmth and comfort of their homes would be scarce. In turn, there would be fewer witnesses to see him taking off at odd hours of the night. A much lower chance of talk reaching Walt’s ears, too.

Satisfied with this reasoning Henry drove against the storm, the windshield buffeted with slush and strong easterly winds that would have set a lesser vehicle to rocking. Henry’s truck weathered the damage with good form, trundling onwards until the _Motel 6_ was in sight, a lobby light glowing a faint yellow hue in the distance. 

A lighthouse amidst the otherwise black, moonless night.

Bundling up he made a dash for the door, his hand slipping on the rain-wet handle before he could swing it open. He resisted the urge to shake off the water like a river-wet dog but he did run a hand through his hair, fat droplets sliding down the side of his neck and into his collar. He stood there shivering and silent until the receptionist looked up from her book.

It must have been a real page-turner considering she had not even heard him enter the lobby. 

“Oh!” the young woman exclaimed, hastily folding up the bottom corner of her worn paperback as she stowed it under the table. 

“How can I help you, sir?” she asked, and though Henry found the question redundant for a hotel receptionist, and his mood was sour, she looked like a nice enough girl. It was not her fault his night had been shitty. 

There was a blue streak in her hair, which was an interesting choice. A startling contrast to her otherwise professional attire and neatly kept blond bun. 

Plus, she had been reading an actual book, not texting. Henry thinks Walt would have liked her and smiled a little at the runaway thought. 

Henry grimly checked his sarcasm at the door and asked for a room for the night. He squinted to read the fine, looping print on her name-tag. “Thank you, Amanda,” he said, accepting his key card for Room 20. 

She opened her mouth as if she wanted to say something else but quickly closed it again. Henry shrugged it off and exited the lobby, quickly locating and letting himself into his room. There were many hours yet, between now and when _Tick-Tock_ man would arrive. It was an _Old Indian Trick_ , arriving early to meet with the enemy and he planned to make full use of it. 

When the man showed up this time, it would be on Henry’s terms and no other. Henry surveyed the small, blandly decorated space, carefully examining its contents: the thick, gold embossed Bible on the nightstand, the granite countertops in the bathroom, and the medium-sized bed with blue bed sheets as the centerpiece. Henry grimaced in distaste remembering _different_ blue colored sheets, and another very small bed. 

Moving on he roughly dragged a chair to the middle of the room discarding his waterlogged jacket across the back and took a seat. He kept the _Glock 17_ carefully laid across his lap as he lay in wait for _Tick-Tock_ man. 

Only four hours till sunrise. Not so very long, in the scheme of things. It was patience in the small moments, the little things, that would turn this venture in his favor. This was no longer _Tick-Tock_ man’s battleground. Henry had made it his own. 

Henry slowly forced his body into a state of calm relaxation, his mind drifting in and out of a restful doze. When the time came, he planned to be prepared and his mind sharp as a well honed blade. 

It seemed almost as if between one blink and the next that sunlight was sneaking beneath the doorway, inching its way across the room in stray curls of light. 

The door eased open, creaking on its hinges, to reveal the man Henry had been waiting for. _Tick-Tock_ man had not expected him to arrive so much earlier and Henry allowed himself a small, mirthless, grin.

“Hello, George Perkins,” Henry said, low toned and flat. As if he were extending a greeting to a distant acquaintance across the way and not his _Tick Tock_ man. 

“That is your name, your real name, is it not?” Henry asked, throwing the wallet to the other man who blinked in stunned silence.

The man tried to catch the wallet but it fumbled from his hands and he was forced to bend down to retrieve it. He no longer looked as confident and imposing as he had in the restroom of the _Red Pony_. Not now that his real identity was part of the stakes.

Henry watched from his seat, his stare cool and impassive. “You should be more careful with where you leave your belongings, George.”

The man frowned, not liking being addressed by name. “Don’t call me that,” he snapped, and while fire sparked in his eyes he was not a fool. He had gotten a good look at the gun in Henry's hand. 

Henry chuckled, an unkind smile turning up the corner of his mouth and a bottomless well of anger burning from the shadows of his eyes. 

“You have had your dick in my mouth _George_ ,” Henry drawled, pinning the other man in place with a pointed look and wave of his gun. The weapon served its purpose, dragging the man’s attention to who held the upper hand. “I think we are far past formalities.”

“I -- I still have the pictures, the videos, all of it!” the other man exclaimed, sweat beading on his brow at this unexpected turning of the tables. “Nothing has changed.”

Henry snorted. “Is that what you think?” he asked, “I came to a decision last night, one you forced me to, really. I do not care.”

“What?” the man stammered. Confusion was writ bold across the features of his face, the bunching of his brows, and the pursing of his mouth in a sharp downward turn. 

“I know your name _George Perkins_ , I know you have a baby sister, and a doting mother, I know you attend _Laramie Community College_ and that is what you are blackmailing me over, tuition fees,” Henry correctly guessed, watching the little tells on the man’s face reveal the truth.

Walt had always said he was good at poker, he had the face for it. He was not wrong.

“I know where you work, how many friends you think you have. Now, how many family members, how many friends, do you imagine will remain with you -- if this came to light, what you have done, what you were party to?” Henry calmly asked, his eyes drilling into the other man. “None, I suspect.”

“I can still ruin you,” the man snarled, “I can!”

Henry nodded slowly. “Maybe that is so, maybe you can. But I also know that some people will not leave, some will not turn their back over this. Can you honestly say the same?”

Perkins stepped inside the door slamming shut behind him blocking out the light of a new day as the sun crested the hills. He stalked into the middle of the room his eyes darting around taking stock. There was not much to see beyond the flat-screen TV, small square table in the corner, and the black vase perched on the window sill. 

Henry remained unmoving, muscled tightly coiled, ready to respond to violence with violence. In fact, he was counting on it. He surreptitiously tucked his gun into his belt, waiting. He wanted to use his fists. 

“Do you know what happens to rape victims when the media get ahold of them?” Perkins grit out, still determined to get the upper hand. “They become chew toys for newshounds! You can’t give me up, not without giving up yourself, too.”

“The only way we walk out of here Scott free is if you give me what I want, that's the only way this ends well for either of us,” he reasoned. “You have to be reasonable, give me what I came here for, and this can all be over -- for both of us.”

It did not escape Henry’s notice, the man's inclusion of _‘we’_ and _‘us’_ as he spun his web. Perkins wanted to make Henry believe they were on the same boat, but they were not. He was on a charter going upstream when all Henry wanted was to leap head-first into the rapids and let fate take its course. Henry was done fighting the currents of this particular storm.

“No,” Henry said when he was done.

“No? What do you mean, no.”

“You will give me the pictures, the videos, everything that connects me _and_ you too Mr. Holden and Mr. Smithson, and then you are going to leave,” Henry calmly explained, watching as Perkin's face turned purple, eyes bugging out at his audacity. “Because you are right about one thing, George, that is the only way this ends for both of us.”

“ _My_ friend is the sheriff, I am certain he will smooth the waters I have to tread. I will _survive_ this, but will you?” Henry asked. He was unfazed by the other man's erratic pacing, though he watched him closely. 

The back and forth patter he was wearing into the carpet was strangely satisfying to see, as was the convulsive swallowing. It signaled the extent of his wrong-footedness. George Perkins, or _Tock-Tock_ man as Henry had taken to calling him in his head, had not expected him to put up a fight. 

_Why should he, when he believed he held all the cards?_ Henry snorted. 

Henry had folded like a bad hand of cards at the table the last time pressure was applied to this vulnerable point. _Tick-Tock_ man had expected a repeat of the same dance they had engaged in before. 

_All the more foolish of him, to make such assumptions._ _After all, even the kicked dog bites -- eventually,_ Henry grimly mused watching the man slowly unravel before his eyes and took satisfaction. Small and trifling as it was, it was still something.

The man was on the verge of surrender. His eyes kept flicking back toward the closed door indicating that he was seconds away from bolting from the room. That just would not do. 

Henry was not done with him yet.

“You’re not letting me go, are you?” _Tick-Tock_ man muttered, his hands clenching and unclenching where they hung at his sides. 

Henry flicked his eyes over him, contempt and dark humor cast his face in deep shadow as he glided to his feet, walking around the man coming to a stop only when he was blocking the only exit. 

“I guess you are not so stupid after all,” Henry said, parroting the man's own words back to him. 

He remembered hearing those words, _Tick-Tock_ man’s, and those of the other men. A myriad of ugly slurs and obscenities Trig happily forced on his ears. Hearing such things all over again last night had gotten under his skin, made him compliant. 

“It is not a good feeling -- being trapped. Is it, George?” Henry quietly asked, getting into the other man’s face. He kept his chin up, meeting the other man’s eyes directly, his stance wide-legged and prepared for any eventuality. 

Sunlight was beginning to flood the room as the sun continued its upward ascent, lighting up the darker corners of the motel room. Henry barely noticed the passage of time, all his focus narrowed down to the man in front of him. 

Perkins, his gaze skipping to the gun tucked into Henry belt, paled and tried to shove his way past Henry. He used his larger, linebacker build to shove Henry back a step. 

Henry, light on his feet, slipped out of his path but knocked Perkins legs out from under him as he tried to leave. The move sent the man crashing into the unforgiving floor on his hands and knees. 

“Did you think we were done?” Henry asked, his voice soft and dangerous.

Perkins snarled, lashing out blindly, scrambling at Henry’s arm as he dragged him halfway to his feet by the collar of his shift, throwing him into the chair beside the small square table. 

“Sit down,” Henry growled, leveling the gun at Perkins' chest. 

“Or what? What, you going to shoot me? In cold blood, is that it, Henry?” Perkins demanded. “I don’t think you have it in you.”

Henry’s hand remained steady and the gun did not waver, his eyes hard and flat as chips of obsidian. “This is not a time to test me, George Perkins, I promise you, you will not enjoy the outcome this time.”

Perkins was studying him, finally, really looking at him. Henry let the other man look his fill, remaining impassive. He knew what it was he would see. Dispassionate anger, buried under a blanket of ice. 

The hard gleam on his eyes was colder than the wind tearing down from the highest mountain peaks, he was not to be trifled with. The hour for retribution had arrived.

Henry was entirely focused on the task at hand, and it showed. 

Perkins observed the frightening absence of any tell-tale emotions on Henry’s face and felt the first stirrings of fear.

Sweat was beading on the other man’s brow, his eyes kept being drawn to the gun leveled in his face. The gravity of his situation was beginning to become clearer. His skin took on a pasty white hue, sickly. 

_Good,_ Henry thought more than happy to impart some of what he had been forced to endure. It was a slippery slope he was treading but he did not care. Not if it meant Perkins felt even a moment of the helplessness that had been forced onto him. _Tick-Tock_ man, _George Perkins_ , was going to give him what he wanted, every last thing.

Henry looked away for a fraction of a second and Perkin lunged forward his hand scrabbling for the gun. His fist connecting with Henry’s already sore jaw with a meaty smack that knocked his face to the side.

The gun dropped from Henry's grasp clattering onto the small tabletop between the two men.

Perkin’s reached for the weapon but he was too slow. 

With smooth precision, Henry unsheathed his hunting knife and drove it through _Tick-Tock_ man’s hand. Effectively pinning it to the center of the table. 

Distracted by the unpleasant feeling of sleek metal driven through his flesh the man squealed, his mouth dropped open in a soundless scream.

Henry calmly repossessed his _Glock 17_ laying it beyond Perkin's reach, retaking his seat at the table.

Henry shrugged, careless, and unmoved by the man’s pain.

“I did warn you.”

“Jesus Christ, what do you want then?” Perkins snarled, with tears of pain dribbling down the side of his face. “Tell me!”

Henry snorted with bitter amusement, his mouth curling into a sneer. “I _wanted_ to be left alone, I _wanted_ to forget fucking _Penrose_ and you and them. But that did not happen, so here we are.”

The two men stared at one another, one darkly amused by the severe turning of the tables, the other beginning to realize the precariousness of his situation. Outside the small hotel room, the sun reached its zenith, dispersing the muggy darkness of night.

Somewhere very far away Walt tossed and turned in a bed soaked through with sweat, harrowed with an unquiet mind filled by strange dreams. 


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walt’s hand inched toward the Colt .45 holstered at his hip. He could see the faint outline of the stalking wolf moving in the cluster of trees and brush. The silver of its pelt glinted in the pale twilight. 
> 
> The red pony wore no halter, no bridle or bit, no saddle either but it did not shy from his extended hand. The soft velvet of its mouth lipping at his hand. 
> 
> “Easy, easy,” Walt soothed, running his hands along the shoulders. “Let's get out of here, you and me,” he finally said and for a moment the scent of lavender was so strong that his nose started to itch and the soft, womanly voice was back. He understood the words this time. He heard them clearly and smiled. 
> 
> _“Give Henry my love, Walter.”_

_Walt Longmire’s Cabin, Wyoming_

_Two Hours Earlier:_

Walt found himself standing at a crossroads. He felt very alone with massive trees looming over his head, hemming him in on all sides. They reminded him of the smallness of himself in the greater circle of life. What was one man, a cog in the works of a larger machine, perhaps? An eerie stillness hung over the clearing he found himself in. It made him uneasy. This absolute quietness. The mountains should be alive with noise, birds and other wildlife going about their business. It could be his presence that had caused this. A man had come to their woods, which admittedly, seldom worked in their favor. That’s when he saw something in the distance. He shaded his eyes against the light to get a better look.

There was a woman in white standing with her back to him roughly 2 yards away from his position. He couldn’t see her face, only the attractive curve of her waist and the long drape of cornflower-gold hair falling down her back, glinting in the pale light streaming through the trees. He didn’t need to see her face after he caught the distinct and familiar scent of lavender and zinnias. 

He knew exactly who she was, alright. 

_What was she doing here,_ Walt mused. _Why wouldn’t she look at him?_ He took a step on the path leading towards her, a wordless whisper growing loud in his ears. He couldn’t hear what was being said, but it was a storm of murmurs, a soft, womanly voice speaking too low for him to make out words. The air grew heavy and thick like he was walking against a gentle wind, batting at his hair and chest. For some reason, he thought of small, dainty hands, and a look that said _‘Not yet, Walter.’_

The wordless murmur sounded infinitely sad to his ears, so he stopped. 

It felt wrong, somehow. Hell if he could place why. He didn’t know that. He stopped in place, frowning, and withdrew to where he had been standing and the whispering ceased altogether. Walt trusted _her_ to know best in these matters and heeded her warning.

Walt looked around some more and found two more paths had materialized but the woman in white was gone. He swallowed down the name curled on his tongue. It would be too painful to speak it aloud. 

Walt investigated the two new paths stretching out before him, on one of them there stood a red pony. It had a white handprint on its withers and another marking Walt found strange, a circle with two arrows within it both pointing towards another smaller circle in the middle. He didn’t know his symbols as well as he should, but he suspected the white hand represented leadership and the second was for protection. Was it his spirit guide? Here to protect him in this place in-between worlds. He didn’t know. 

The third road pointed south, and it was there that Walt observed an abyss of black. He took one step toward it, curious about the strangeness of its inky darkness but quickly decided to pull back. That road was not for him. It was the road to nowhere. It always circled back, never moving forward. 

Walt heard sounds coming from the trees, low snarls, panting breaths, drawing nearer with each circle. Walt held his hand out in peace towards the red pony. He slowly approached the wild animal. It stared at him, ears flicking towards first him then the edge of the woods. 

A wolf was circling the red pony. 

Though the pony was a wild creature it remained calm and unafraid by the encroaching threat of either man or beast. Perhaps it did not need him, it certainly did not react with fear, but Walt’s protective instincts surged to the forefront of his mind. He would not leave it alone. It went against his better nature to consider doing so. 

Walt’s hand inched toward the Colt .45 holstered at his hip. He could see the faint outline of the stalking wolf moving in the cluster of trees and brush. The silver of its pelt glinted in the pale twilight. 

The red pony wore no halter, no bridle or bit, no saddle either but it did not shy from his extended hand. The soft velvet of its mouth lipping at his hand. 

“Easy, easy,” Walt soothed, running his hands along the shoulders. “Let's get out of here, you and me,” he finally said and for a moment the scent of lavender was so strong that his nose started to itch and the soft, womanly voice was back. He understood the words this time. He heard them clearly and smiled. 

_“Give Henry my love, Walter.”_

Walt bolted upright in bed, sheet tangling at his hips as he rolled to his feet. “Ah, dammit,” he cursed, breathing hard as though he had been running a mile not laying about in bed. Martha was his first thought. Henry was his second.

Walt recognized that had not been an ordinary dream. Walt stood in the dark for a long moment, remembering how very real the scent of lavender had been, he almost expected to see the ghost of his late wife materialize before his waking eyes but she never did. The minutes ticked by and slowly he put the pieces together. What it all meant -- what she had been trying to tell him all along. What was the point of living, if he kept his feet rooted to the ground? It was time to move forward, or risk the path of inky blackness where nothing changed and each step retraced itself, looping back to the beginning. It was not the road or life, he had chosen. His love for Martha would never die. It would always be present, carried with him wherever he traveled, but unless he chose to follow her into the grave she was his past. It was time. 

Henry wasn’t dead. Henry was _real_ and _here_ and Walt loved him so damn hard it hurt sometimes. More importantly, Henry _still_ wanted him. 

He was also probably in trouble. Again. “Fuck, Henry, what’d you do now?” Walt muttered hopping into his pants and throwing his feet into his boots. 

Still doing up the buttons on his shirt he did something rare. He called Henry’s cell phone. Unsurprisingly there was no answer. Walt thought of the old quote, something about roads, and love, and how it never went to plan, or was it smoothly? He’d forgotten. Right then and there he decided whoever penned it knew their shit. The timing was always off these days between him and Henry and he wasn’t sure whose fault it was. Mostly his, but also a little bit Henry’s and his damn stubborn reserve Walt suspected. Probably. 

He tried the phone, again and again, chewing on his lower lip as he listened to it ring. Each time he was answered with the recording of Henry’s voice, but not Henry himself. 

_Let him be home, let him be safe,_ Walt thought as he listened to the phone ringing and ringing. _When was life ever that easy? Never, that’s when!_ Walt thought, pessimism leaking across his thoughts like a cold draft sneaking beneath a poorly sealed window. 

He ran a hand over his face trying to rub the grit from his eyes. 

When the cell phone proved a dead-end he left a terse message, _“It’s Walt, call me back when you get this,”_ and tried the downstairs phone line in the barroom. Still, there was no answer. 

Walt growled, shoved the phone back into its cradle, grabbing his gun and holster, shrugging into his tanned coat, snatching up the .30-30 propped at the door on his way out. His stomach rumbled. A rude reminder that he needed food. Walt groaned, stomping back into the cabin the door slamming shut behind as he grabbed a slice of bread from the fridge. Holding the food in his mouth he hefted his .30-30 and hurried out to his truck.

He’d lost Henry once already because he chose to ignore strange dreams. He was not always the smartest man in the room but he knew better than to make the same damn mistake twice. If nothing was wrong and Henry got mad so be it. He could deal with Henry mad at him for hovering. 

Henry would get over it.

Walt couldn’t deal with Henry being dead, or in trouble, because of a bad choice _he_ made. Or didn’t make, as the case had been last time.

“Dammit, Henry," Walt muttered, staring down at his hands as he realized there was one other person who might help him. Someone who might actually get mad at _him_ if he didn't call and this turned out to be serious.

“Dammit," Walt said, again, smacking the steering wheel as he swung the door open again and dashed back into the cabin. He viciously punched the numbers into the phone and waited to listen to another phone ring and ring and ring. Right before he gave up he heard the click as someone picked up.

"What the hell, Longmire?" Omar grunted into the phone. "Do you know what time it is?"

"Answer one question and I’ll let you go, do you know where Henry is?" Walt bit out before Omar could keep complaining, his voice groggy from sleep.

"No Walt, I don't know where Henry is, it's what? Five in the morning?" Omar grunted. "Hell, I'm not the man's keeper, a better question is why don't _you_ know the answer to that and don't try playing coy with me -- you know exactly what I mean."

Walt snorted wondering who had let that _particular_ cat out of the bag because he knew it sure wasn’t him. He decided to shelve that discussion for another time and kept to the task at hand. Namely finding Henry Standing Bear, again. He supposed it was his month for misplaced friends.

“I know you like to take your time, Walt, but how much time are you gonna take? You gonna wait till you’re already one foot in the grave to speak up?” Omar nettled. “Don’t make me play matchmaker, I’m terrible at it, just ask June.”

“June? Who's June?” Walt snapped, drawing a blank at the name.

Omar snorted on the other end of the line. 

“Exactly.”

Walt knew not to take Omar too seriously, letting the words slide off his back like water on a duck's feathers. The other man was cranky and irritated about being woken at the ass-crack of dawn. 

Didn’t mean he had to _like_ the grain of truth in all his grouching. Walt ground his teeth, all the same, displeased at being called out at his slow attempt at making a go of it with his best friend by _his_ other close friend. Whose side was Omar on, anyhow? 

Henry’s he’d bet and he wasn’t even bitter. To say he was annoyed and confounded was much more apt. A little salty, maybe. 

Walt resisted groaning aloud. “I'm still working on that."

Omar grunted and Walt could hear him shuffling around.

"Okay, well, I’ve said my piece, what's he done now," Omar asked.

"Nothing, maybe. I don't know -- but I can't reach him and I got a bad feeling about that," Walt explained, waiting through Omar's expected sigh of annoyance.

“Omar," Walt said, leaving the rest unsaid.

He didn't know how to explain to Omar who didn't believe in spirits and dreams about the feeling he had. Trouble was brewing and Henry was in the middle of it, he knew it in his gut.

“Fine, fine, but when he gets angry with us for babying him I'm blaming you," Omar groaned. Walt imagined Omar shaking his finger and grinned, silently nodding on his side of the conversation.

"Deal."

"Fine. I'll meet you in town, outside the _Red Pony_ , best begin by knocking on his door and go from there."

"Okay," Walt said and hung up. 

This time when he left the cabin he quietly shut the door behind him, more in control of the emotions coiled around his heart. He had a plan of action, a place to begin, and qualified backup in Omar. That man could shoot as good as Vic and better than Ferg on his worst day. Walt reasoned that pulling either of his deputies into this situation now would mean another person getting too close to the truth that Henry was dead set on burying. 

Omar already knew so it was Omar he roped into his one-man search party. 

Walt pulled out of his dirt road driveway, well off the beaten path. His attention was drawn towards the flock of buzzards circling in the muggy grey skies over roadkill. He told himself that not everything was an omen to be unraveled. It had been an unlucky rabbit, nothing more and nothing less. Still, unease made him press down on the gas. It surprised him to discover that Omar’s black _Silverado_ with its tires decked out with ice chains had beat him to the bar. The other man was already beating on the front door which absolved him of his guilt for breaking the speed laws. 

He wasn’t the only one _concerned_ after all. Walt pulled in alongside Omar’s truck and silently brushed past the other man, the spare key already dangling in his hand. He pressed it into the lock, sliding back the deadbolt and let himself and Omar into Henry’s establishment. 

“Henry?” Walt called out, stepping into the middle of the room, pausing for an answer. When he received none he took to the stairs, taking them two at a time in his hurry. 

He paused, knocking at the door leading to Henry's private room above the bar. “Henry, are you in there?” Walt asked.

“If you are, this is Longmire’s fault, not mine!” Omar exclaimed, peering around his shoulder at the closed door. 

“Well, don’t just stand there, Walt. Open the door, we’ve come this far already.” 

“What do you expect me to do, Omar? Break down the door?” Walt grunted, shooting him a scathing look of disbelief.

“Don’t act coy, like you haven’t busted down doors before, it’s the best part of the job, isn't it?” Omar shot back, refusing to budge. Walt shrugged, conceding the point, and got ready to throw his shoulder into the last barrier in his way.

Omar shoved Walt out of the way before he could do serious damage to Henry's already minimalist living space. “Besides, just try the knob, it’s not always locked, is it?” he asked, grinning when the door gently swung open. 

Walt scowled but said nothing, he knew when he’d been beaten.

Henry was not here. Walt glanced at the door he had almost broken down and decided it was a very good thing he had called Omar. Henry would have been pissed to find he’d ruined a perfectly good door for no reason. 

“He should have been here,” Walt muttered, scanning the room.

“Yeah, well, he’s not.”

Something leaped from the shelf at his back and Walt, itching with tension like ants crawling over his skin, almost put a bullet in Henry’s wall. 

Walt holstered his gun, shaking his head in disbelief. The something which had leaped from the shelf turned out to be a small orange cat. It fixed sharp unblinking eyes on him, thoroughly unimpressed with his presence. 

“Since when did Henry have a cat?” Omar muttered, tip-toeing around the animal. Walt watching him curiously, amusement bubbling up to see the man side-eyeing the animal the same way he might an 800-pound black bear.

Walt snorted at the question, bitterness creeping into his voice. “How the hell should I know, he doesn’t tell me shit anymore.”

Omar sighed. “Walt.”

“Forget it, come on.”

Walt looked back at the room and the orange cat curled in the middle of Henry’s bed. It looked back at him, its vibrant green eyes fixed on his face, it opened its mouth and _meowed_. Then it returned to staking out its spot on the bed and Walt was entirely forgotten. 

“Never been a cat person, myself. To judge-y,” Omar muttered. “Though, somehow, Henry having one makes some kind of sense.”

“Judge-y, huh?” Walt murmured, throwing a lopsided grin over his shoulder. “Remind you of anyone?”

Omar blinked, taken back, before he startled chuckling, too.

Walt laughed a little adding, “It’s not so strange, I guess.”

They were not alone when they went back down the stairs. One of Henry’s staff, a man Walt vaguely recalled as Sam was at the phone reporting a break-in. He stopped speaking into the phone when he saw it was the sheriff standing in the room and not a robber. 

“Sorry, sorry -- it appears to have been a misunderstanding. I assumed there had been a robbery when I saw that the deadbolt had been unlocked and my boss’s truck was not parked outback as it usually would be,” Sam said into the phone, his eyes locked onto Walt.

“There is no problem, and if there were trouble it would be settled quickly, the man who let himself in is the _sheriff_ , sorry for the trouble,” Sam finished and hung up the phone.

“Sorry,” Omar offered, knowing Walt wouldn't. “We were just looking for your boss. But seeing as he’s not here, we’ll be off.”

Sam frowned. “He should have been here, though, this is his bar and up there is his home, where else would he go at this hour?”

“Just a bit of miscommunication, I’m sure,” Omar offered, “You know how it is.”

Sam nodded, his frown deepening. “I know that when Walter Longmire shows up in the odd hours like this that it can only mean trouble. Is it Henry, is he in trouble?” Sam asked, genuine concern bleeding through his gruffness. 

He tried to hide it, but Walt could tell he was worried. 

_Why? Why was this man worried, too?_ Walt wanted to know. 

“I’ll catch you up, Omar, Walt said, hanging back to speak with Sam.

Walt waited, hands resting on his hips. “There’s something you want to say, so say it.”

“Not say, ask. The men who kidnapped Standing Bear? You got them, all of them, right?” Sam asked, his brow furrowing. 

Walt’s stomach dropped to the vicinity of his feet as he realized that wasn’t a question he could answer definitely. He had thought so, but then Henry wasn’t exactly talking to him about the specifics of what happened, either. 

It hadn’t occurred to him that there might have been another person involved. The notion made him sick. Just when he thought he’d come to grips with what happened to Henry out at _Penrose_ another fact came to light.

“Why, do you have reason to think otherwise?” Walt asked, stepping closer. “Did Henry say something indicating that there were more than two kidnappers?”

Walt swallowed, not knowing which would be worse. The fact that Henry might have told this man and _not him_ , or that he hadn’t said anything at all. To anyone. 

Sam shook his head. “No, he did not say anything. You know Henry.”

“But something happened, to make you ask. What was it?” Walt questioning, pulling out a chair. Sam followed suit, seating himself as he thought.

“Specifically? There was nothing, but there was a man, he stared a lot. It reminded me of the other men, the ones in the paper who I had seen drinking here. Holden and the late Smithson. They also had _that look_ in their eye.”

“You have footage?” Walt asked, relieved when Sam nodded.

“Show me.”

Sam led him to Henry’s office and fed the videotape from last night into the device. In twenty minutes Sam had found the man he hadn’t liked the look of. The one who stared a lot. Walt discovered he didn’t much like this man either. The fact that he was in the same age range as both Holden and Smithson didn’t help any with the concern squirming in his gut.

Walt watched him enter the bar, look around as if he was searching for something. He spoke to Amy White Feather and strolled out of view into the men's room. He came out thirty minutes later, looking very smug. 

_The veritable cat who'd eaten the canary, and why shouldn't he,_ Walt thought his mind swirling with black suspicions. He prayed he was wrong but he didn’t think he was.

Walt held his breath when ten minutes after Henry exited the bathroom. Walt made sure his face gave nothing away. He had an audience after all. He studied the grainy footage and felt his heart turn to stone. 

Henry was pushing the mop and bucket but there were water stains on his knees from the bathroom tiles.

Henry did not scrub the floors on his hands and knees. He knew that for a fact. That’s what the mop was for. Walt narrowed his eyes, taking in the new cut on his face, the faint purple hue of his cheek. Dammit, Henry looked like someone’s battered wife. 

Walt sucked in a breath and loudly expelled it. 

“Thanks, Sam,” Walt said brushing past him. “I’m sure it’s nothing, miscommunication, like Omar said.”

“I am sure you are right,” Sam quickly agreed. 

Too quickly. 

He didn’t believe a word of it. 

Walt decided there was nothing to be done about that. The man had his own mind, he’d come to his own conclusions at this point. Anything he said would only draw more suspicion so he said nothing.

Omar was sitting in his truck with the door propped open when he blew out of the bar. Whatever the man saw on his face kept him from wisecracking. 

“Phone,” Walt barked, and Omar tossed it over.

Walt punched in the number he needed and waited, listening to another phone ring. Thankfully he did not have to wait long. 

Dean Tyler answered on the second ring. They’d worked together on a missing person case two years back. Specifically, Tyler knew the back door policies of legal phone tracing through a network provider called _Securus._

Thanks to a service who micro-managed its users they had caught the offender, a Mexican cartel man who’d been planning to illegally smuggle his daughter across the border where she’d never see her mother again. 

It hadn’t happened, in large part because of Tyler who knew his tech. Alejandro Vasquez, fortunately for the family and local law enforcement, had been a low-level thug without any real tech-savvy skills. 

Sarah Davis now lived with her mother, Kelly, in Durant, where she attended _Rock Creek High School_. Her mother still sent Christmas cards to the office. Ruby always made sure they made it to the top of his paperwork.

“Walter Longmire, as I live and breathe.”

“Tyler, it’s been a while.”

“Sure has, I know you don’t do social calls so what can I do for you?” 

“I can’t find someone,” Walt admitted. “Can you do your magic with _Securus_ again?”

“For you, Walt, yeah. Give me the number,” Tyler said.

Walt rattled off Henry’s personal cell phone number and waited for Tyler to get back to him. He hadn’t seen it in Henry’s room which meant he had taken it with him. It would lead Walt to either his truck or the man himself. 

“Here’s the address, hardly even out of your way, sheriff. Get your man, eh?” Tyler joked. “Maybe call and tell me about it sometime.”

“Maybe,” Walt said, knowing he wouldn't. “Thanks, Tyler.”

“Sure, Walt, sure, anything for a friend,” Tyler drawled, his voice becoming more familiar than official business warranted catching Walt off guard. “Give me a ring, next time you're down in my neck of the woods, I’ll buy you that drink.”

The line went dead. Walt blinked at the phone wondering if that had been what he _thought_ it was. He shook it off deciding he must have been mistaken. _Dean Tyler_ , known skirt-chaser and philanderer, flirting with _him_? No way. He’d heard him wrong, somehow, that was all. 

“Well, where are we going?” Omar prodded.

“Right,” Walt said, shaking off the strange conversation. Promising himself he’d tell Henry later, he’d get a good laugh out of that he suspected. “Not far, get in,” Walt said, turning to get in his own truck, Omar trailing on his heels. 

“Walt, what the fuck is going on here, did you learn something?” Omar demanded when Walt didn’t say anything on the drive. “And don’t you tell me ‘nothing’ -- I know you. That’s not your nothing face.”

Walt inhaled sharply, his hands tight on the wheel eyes fixed straight ahead. “I think...there were three men involved in the kidnapping at _Penrose_ . I think...that third man that no one knew about? Well, he showed up at the _Red Pony_ last night looking for something. Beyond that, I don’t want to do much thinking.”

“Oh,” Omar said, leaning back in his seat. “Blackmail, money?” he wondered aloud. 

Walt shrugged. “Probably.”

“Can I shoot him? Pretty please,” Omar asked, straight-faced and grim. “Won’t even kill him, just a nice bullet hole for the hospitals to fish out.”

Walt grunted. “Maybe.”

He thought of the state of Henry’s knees, the bloody lip, bruised face, and knew that he might beat Omar to it. And if he did it wouldn’t be a neat clean shot for the doctors to stitch up. If Walt had his way this asshole's next stop would be the morticians. Walt was getting a bit tired of seeing Henry banged up and not being able to retaliate appropriately. 

Henry might not _want or need_ his protection but he had it, regardless. It’s what a man did for people he loved. And the only marks that belonged to that man were love-bites nibbled into his skin, below the collar of his clothes which allowed for discretion. Faint bruises that would vanish back into the skin in short order. Marks derived from passionate lovemaking, maybe. Walt had given and received his share of those over the years. But not this blood, bruises, and a growing darkness in his eyes. A collection of ghosts that Walt couldn’t banish.

Walt drove with both hands fixed on the wheel, unflinching determination etched into the hard lines of his face. Whether he was needed or wanted was beside the point, it was where he wanted to be. Where he’d _chosen_. There weren't many men who could say they had their wife's blessing on these matters but he had that too. And damned if he was going to waste it. Walt thought of Martha, how she’d been in life -- the way her eyes light up in a special way, just for Henry. How she’s liked to card her hands through his hair, often so much longer than Walt’s. The way they moved around each other in a kitchen, in perfect sync, while he was exiled to the kitchen or tasked with the table setting. 

_‘Give my love to Henry,’_ she’d said to him when he was walking between worlds. Well, that was that, wasn’t it? He had his marching orders. But in all of history, no man had gone more willingly than Walter Longmire. This love he carried wasn’t always easy, but it always led him right. In the end.

Smithson, Holden, and _Mr. Stares A Lot_ had tried to get between, sowing seeds of doubt and wrecking everything they put their hands on but Walt wasn’t going to stand for it. What he and Henry had was for real, for all time, the good, the bad, and the fucking ugly. If they could just weather this one last storm, nothing left could break them. Walt was dead certain of it. He and this new stranger would have a little chat and depending upon what _Mr. Stares A Lot_ had to say the events would take their due course. But this time Walt planned to be checking his badge at the door. 

Walt pulled into the _Motel 6_ parking lot and met a familiar face in Amanda Bell who was primly standing behind the lobby receptionist counter, her nose stuck in a book. 

“Excuse me, Amanda, right?” Walt said striding up to the counter aware of Omar flanking him, checking the corners of the room. It was a comfort, having someone trusted at his back. 

“I’m looking for a man, he might have checked in this morning or last night, Cheyenne, his name is Henry Standing Bear. Have you seen him?” Walt asked, railroading over niceties that he lacked the time to engage in.

“This guy,” Omar offered, pulling up a photo of Henry. 

Walt side-eyed him for having a photo of Henry but didn’t have the time to dwell. _He_ didn’t even have a photo of Henry on his person Walt realized sourly. _Because you don’t have a phone, dummy,_ his subconscious chortled at his expense. He added it to the list of things labeled _later_ and moved on. 

He was on the clock, adrenaline surging below his skin, even as he kept an outwardly unflappable mien. People oftentimes started panicking when the _sheriff_ looked panicked. And that just wouldn’t do any good right now.

Amanda bobbed her head, the shock of blue in her hair falling into her face. “Yeah, he came in last night, or this morning really? He looked a little rough, tired, too. But he was nice -- for all that he looked like he’d had a bad night? Checked into Room 20,” Amanda replied.

“Thanks,” Walt called out, already rushing past her. 

Amanda chuckled, shouting after him. “Seems you're often chasing after this Cheyenne friend of yours, sheriff!”

Walt snorted his eyes scanning for the proper number as he walked past rows and rows of numbers doors looking for the one he wanted. 

The girl had a fair point. It felt an awful lot like that these days, too. Still, he wouldn’t change a thing. This was where he was supposed to be. He knew that now.

“Got it,” Omar said, having gotten ahead of him. “Can I?” he asked, motioning toward the door, a look close to excitement on his face at the prospect of busting down a door. 

Walt nodded curtly. “Go for it.”

Raising up his boot Omar brought it down hard. The flimsy wood crashed inward and Walt braced himself for the unknown as he stepped into the place where the door had been. The rising sun at his back he cast a hard eye at his surroundings, gun at the ready. Of all the things he had been expecting to see in this room Henry leveling his _Glock 17_ at his face had _not_ been one of them.

He’d let Omar beat down Henry's hotel room door. He’d made a lot of noise to do it, too. Considering how damn jumpy Henry had been since he’d gotten him back he should have expected this. He should have at least _considered_ the possibility that his best friend might actually be armed. 

Henry did own a gun and right now he was getting an awfully up-close and personal look down the barrel. He found himself torn between relief and disappointment that he hadn’t been able to pummel _Mr. Stares A Lot_. Ah well, the day was young, yet. 

“You mind putting that down, Henry?” Walt requested, holstering his own Colt .45.

“Walter Longmire, were you tracking me?” Henry demanded, his expression saying the only correct answer was _‘no.’_ Which would be a lie. 

Walt groaned and shrugged one shoulder half-heartedly. “I was tracking your phone,” he hedged because he wasn’t going to out and out _lie_ to Henry. 

As he’d expected Henry’s displeased glower remained unchanged. Shaking his head and muttering under his breath, shit he couldn’t hear because of the two of them Henry was the one with ears like a K9, Henry put down the gun.

Walt relaxed marginally without a gun barrel burning a target into his chest. He let his eyes scan over Henry’s face and body making no effort to disguise what he was doing. He looked for new marks and new bruises. He was satisfied only when he found none. Henry was alright. 

Omar cleared his throat. _Loudly._ Walt, who had almost forgotten him, caught up in the moment as he had been, fought down the urge to draw steel, and place his wider body in front of Henry. 

They both turned their attention to Walt’s unofficial back-up instead. Walt’s focus had been so narrowed down to Henry and his safety that he’d barely made note of _Mr. Stares A Lot_ other than that he was in the room and breathing. 

Walt looked closer at Henry’s guest and started chuckling. He knew it was wrong and bad and he shouldn't. But damn. Henry had caught this one, and good. 

Henry hadn’t really needed Walt budging in this time, had he? 

Omar sighed, resigned to being the voice of reason. “Hate to break up this lovely reunion but there is a man with a big ass hunting knife stabbed through his hand in your room. Care to explain, Henry?”

“Do I need a lawyer?” Henry asked in his usual plain-spoken manner. Direct and to the point. It was a good question, a fair on to ask, considering he was the _sheriff_. 

Walt winced, wishing they hadn’t been so enthusiastic to bust down the door as _Mr. Stares A Lot_ started making a ruckus now that attention was drawn to him, grunting and cursing them out. Being a lawman came with its little perks. If anyone started hovering all he had to do was flash his badge and claim _‘police business, folks’_ to bustle people along. It was early enough, and far enough off the beaten flow of traffic that crowds weren’t a problem yet. _Mr. Stares A Lot_ kept carrying on and making a fuss, trying to make full use of the spotlight while he had it. 

Walt suspected the man might have shut up had he known they were close friends of Henry. 

_Mr. Stares A Lot_ brought up his right hand, likely to pull the knife out, but something he saw on Henry’s face stopped him.

Walt caught a glimpse of it, a bare glimmer really, and didn’t blame the other man for stopping in his tracks. It was the only smart thing to do when Henry had _that_ look. Rigid, unrelenting, and really _\-- quietly --_ pissed off.

It was a rare thing, seeing Henry worked up to this point, but it kept _Mr. Stares A Lot_ from undoing Henry’s impalement work. Henry had done a good job of it by avoiding any major arteries or bleeders while it effectively butterflied the man’s hand to the table. 

Walt mildly wondered if this was the hand that had offended Henry. The one that had touched what it should not have. Or maybe it was simpler than that, and Henry wanted retribution. Like the Jew, _Shylock_ , who demanded his pound of flesh, satisfied only with blood for dishonor and had to be tricked out of his due by the clever _Portia_. 

In the end Mr. _Stares A Lot_ was no _Antonio_ , and he had no clever Portia to spare him the knife. If Henry really wanted his pound of flesh he’d hand him the damn carving knife. Either way he turned it, Walt couldn’t find any fault in his actions. Not as a friend or a lover. As a lawman, maybe. 

But sometimes the system was at fault. He’d seen what these kinds of things did to a person in a small town where words spread like wildfire. The truth seldom had a snowball's chance in hell.

“Help me! This man is crazy, he’s been holding me at gunpoint!” the man at the table hollered, desperately pleading with them for assistance. He was playing up the victim card which irked Walt something terrible.

Omar looked down at the hunting knife protruding from his hand and winced. 

“Come on, man! At least call 911!” _Mr. Stares A Lot_ demanded. 

Omar shrugged, pointing at Walt. “He _is_ 911 around here.”

_Mr. Stares A Lot_ went ashen, a sickly white tone. Fear sucking the color right out of his face when he realized one of the men in the room with him was the sheriff and he _wasn’t_ rushing to his rescue any time soon. 

“Real question is what you did to make Henry put a knife in you, son? I’ve annoyed him plenty, he hasn’t stabbed me yet, go on then, what’d you do?” Omar asked conversationally. Pulling out the seat Henry had vacated. 

Omar smiled, a baring of teeth. “I’ve known him for some years now, see? He’s a good man -- irritating as fuck, maybe -- but good, not prone to sticking sharp blades into people for no reason.”

Walt watched the two men, Omar hiding his growing anger behind a false smile and relaxed pose and _Mr. Stares A Lot_ whose face was hotly flushed, squirming in his seat. Walt didn’t imagine it tickled, having that stuck inside him, he always wasn’t particularly sympathetic. 

“Damn fucking Indian whores crazy, man” the man muttered, squeezing his eyes shut as he grit his teeth through the pain radiating from his hand. 

Walt froze, hearing the words falling off _Mr. Stares A Lot’s_ lips easy as breathing like he’d said it a thousand times before. Whore? He’d just called his best friend a whore. The slur had rolled off his tongue, his tone mean and ugly. 

He’s said it so easily, that's what got under Walt's skin. 

Walt wanted to haul the man to his feet and slug him in the face, but he couldn’t. Henry’s knife pinned _Mr. Stares A Lot_ at the table. The knife was embedded at least three inches into the wood underneath. He quivered with inaction, his ears ringing, and his fists clenching.

“He’s fucking crazy, alright?” 

_Mr. Stares A Lot_ only realized his gaffe when he stopped yapping and took in the sudden tension that hung in the air. Feeling the three pairs of eyes glaring in his direction with enough heat to ignite a fire. 

Walt fancied even _he_ could’ve heard a pin drop in the silence that followed the man’s poorly thought out words. _Mr. Stares A Lot_ tried to backpedal but the damage was irreparable. 

“I mean, he is crazy, okay? Look! He stabbed me!”

Walt turned his flat stare on _Mr. Stares A Lot_ , the man Sam had taken instant dislike to and decided he didn’t like him either. What surprised him most was how Henry failed to react much, or at all, to the insult. His eye twitched a little, a grimace pulling at his lips but beyond that? Nothing. It said a whole lot, too. Like that he’d heard this kind of talk before. Too much for it to get a rise out of him, Walt guessed. 

“C’mon, let me go,” the man pleaded. 

_Had Henry pleaded like this,_ Walt dispassionately wondered, studying the man at the table the way he trembled, ashen-faced, and wide-eyed. Had they listened, if he had? He doubted it. 

“Shut up!” Walt growled, striding over to the table in two steps. Walt banged his hand against it and the man pinned to it yelped in frantic fright. He also stopped his caterwauling. 

Omar punched him in the shoulder muttering, “Reign it in, Walter,” as he cursed him out for his temper. Walt knew why he’d done it but he needn’t have bothered. Henry remained unflinching, face coolly impassive even when confronted with Walt’s bad humor. 

“No, dammit, you don’t need a lawyer,” Walt snarled in answer to Henry’s earlier question. Leaning back against the wall, intentionally trying to give his friend room, he silently implored with his eyes, _‘let me help.’_

He wasn’t here to judge. 

“Just talk to me, please.”

“Very well.” 

Henry cast his eyes off to the side, the first time he’d done that since Omar had broken down the hotel door. 

Walt braced himself for whatever came next. He made his face into stone so he wouldn’t show something that might cause Henry to shut down. 

There was a time and a place for comfort, this wasn’t it. Henry wouldn’t stand for it so Walt bided his time for when it would be more welcome. And he listened. 

“This is one of the three men who was involved in my kidnapping, he was less...involved than the other two.” Henry met his eyes briefly, speaking more with his look than his lips wanted to speak aloud. 

Walt could only read so much from subtext, but he understood enough to think he gets the implications Henry’s making. Not that it changes anything to Walt. 

Henry turned his gaze to the side, staring off into the distance past his shoulder. “Apparently, he helped them with...redistribution…editing and such.”

Walt frowned, trying to make sense of what Henry was trying to tell him. Listening carefully for what he also wasn’t out and out saying. He thinks maybe he’s missing something, from the look Henry shoots him, silently pleading with him to just _‘get it.’_

He’s going to have to disappoint him, again. 

“Redistribution, what?” Walt asked, thinking about the _Penrose Kidnapping Case_ and editing. He tried to imagine what one had to do with the other but came up blank.

Henry scrubbed a hand over his face looking away, staring hard at the floor. “Videos, Walt! They made and sold fucking videos of -- of what they did to me.” His voice wavered, broken, before he soldier on, terse and angry. “ They sold them to a site and who knows where else, or who else for that matter.”

“Shit!” Walt cursed, and again because he could. 

“Fucking pigs,” Omar murmured, quiet and subdued at his back. “Shoulda…” he broke off, becoming quiet and Walt let it go. He was contemplating a lot of _‘should have’s’_ himself. 

Henry remained aloof, his expression very distant and impossible to read. Walt admired his ability to shut it down so completely even if it made his chest hurt like he’d been kicked by a horse to see. 

Walt figured that was okay, though. He could be angry and loud enough for both of them. 

His fingers itched for his gun, he might even have reached for it, but Henry stopped him. With nothing more than a sharp look and a firm shake of his head. 

Henry may as well have shouted it from the top of his lungs because Walt heard him just as clearly as if he had. 

_‘No, Walter.’_

Always acting his voice of reason, Henry was, dammit. He’d never shot a man in cold blood but standing in the same room as _Mr. Stares A Lot_ made the idea more palatable than it had ever been. 

This man participated in dark business and he’d profited. He’d hurt Henry in ways Walt still shuddered to contemplate, for _money_. 

Omar finally spoke, his voice gravelly. Walt hadn’t forgotten his presence this time. He had been all too aware of Omar at his back, listening, while Henry and he danced around what they really meant. One habit they might never learn to break.

“Well, look at that. Henry doesn’t need you to play the big damn hero after all.” 

Omar clapped him on the back trying to lighten the tension. Walt idly wondered if Omar could see the murderous thoughts he was contemplating. The fury cresting under this skin, waiting to break loose like a flash fire. 

Henry made a sound of derision, his fingers drumming against the table's edge. A quick _rap-tap-rap_ motion that caught Walt’s eye. The _Glock 17_ remained close to him within easy grabbing range. A practical move for an often practical man. 

Walt inhaled sharply, frustrated anger roiling in his gut. “Henry, you care to tell me why you didn’t tell me any of this before? And don’t say there wasn’t time. Don’t Godman _lie to me_.” 

He’d rather listen to the silence for all time than hear _lies_ trip off of his best friend's lips.

“It was not your problem,” Henry snapped back, his succinctly chosen words cutting Walt clean down to the bone. “So I did not tell you.”

Walt snarled wordlessly, taking a step toward Henry. They were standing chest to chest in the small room, so close he could see the play of light glinting in Henry’s dark eyes, the tightening of the lines at the corner of his mouth in a deep frown. He caught the scent of _cinnamon and sage_ standing this close to his friend and remembered a time when he had thought this man dead. 

It plucked the wind right out of his sails. 

He wasn’t angry with Henry. Even if he was mad, angry that Henry decided to rush into this alone, it didn’t matter. Everything about this situation was upside down. 

He could blame _Mr. Stares A Lot_ for ruining the progress he’d seen Henry making. He could blame Smithson and Holden for making it necessary. But the one person he couldn't blame was Henry. 

This wasn't _Henry's_ fault. It was this whole shitty situation, a real no-win scenario, the best they could hope for was to break even and walk away in the same state they’d entered. 

Walt jerked his thumb towards _Mr. Stares A Lot._ “He's a blackmailer and a kidnapper, that’s two counts of my problem,” he shot back, his tone lower and calmer than his earlier growling. He wanted to understand, not argue. 

“You should have told me and not because I’m the sheriff, dammit.”

“Well, here you are, though I know I did not ask you to be!” Henry hoarsely whispered, his eyes hard as flint and bright as the match before light strikes. 

“Is that what your problem is, huh?” Walt demanded, refusing to back down. A small quiet voice in the back of his head said he needed to back off and calm down. He ignored it. He needed Henry to hear him if he didn’t this stubborn refusal to accept help might well break them for good.

“You think you got to do everything alone?” Walt asked, “Why? Answer me that, and I’ll drop it, right here and right now.”

For an instant, he thought Henry was going to haul back and sucker punch him. He was absolutely livid at being called out and wound up enough to do it. 

Henry didn’t though, he stepped back, placing more space between them and Walt felt the distance like a cold draft on a warm night. It hurt a bit like the slow knife only felt on the exit, but he refused to let it show. 

Henry turned his back to Walt as he spoke. “Did it not occur to you that perhaps I did not want _you_ knowing the full extent of my shame.”

Walt stared at Henry’s back shock rooting him to the spot. 

“Shame?” he asked, inhaling sharply. His voice cracked, he knows it did, but all he could see was the slumped line of his best friends back. 

Walt took Henry by the elbow and dragged him out of the room which had suddenly become too small and tightly confined. Their audience was too loud, even in their silence. Henry _allowed_ himself to be pulled and Walt considered it a minor victory.

He wanted to feel the sun on his skin and be looking Henry in the eyes when he spoke next. He wanted to leave the darkness behind, in that hotel, in that RV impounded at the DMV. It had no business inserting itself here, between them. 

This was another one of those little things he’d missed, wasn’t it? 

He’d been slow when he needed most to be fast. 

“You have nothing to be ashamed of, Henry. Nothing, okay.” 

Walt studied Henry who looked back, blank, and glassy-eyed. There was a wet shine in his eyes that spoke of unfallen tears. Walt wanted to brush them away with his own hands. He didn’t. 

Henry was closed off to him now. 

“What happened to you was shit, and I wish it had never happened. But shame, Henry? You have done nothing to be shameful of, nothing.”

Walt could see that he wasn’t getting through to Henry and it killed him to admit, even to himself, that he might not be able to. “What if it had been me, then, and not you? Would this have become _my_ shame to carry if I hadn’t been strong enough, or-”

He stopped his tirade. He had to, Henry had placed his calloused palm over his mouth to quiet him. The gesture transformed, becoming a half caress. Brief and fleeting as a white snow flurry melted in the palm of his hand. The gesture had been nothing more than a whisper of lips against skin. The last of Walt's anger bled out of him. 

But Walt tilted into the touch, enjoying the rareness of it while it lasted. He slowly grasped the outstretched hand between his own, pressing a quick kiss to the palm before Henry retreated, withdrawing it. Maybe it was just a play of the light, the sunlight on Henry’s tanned skin but Walt suspected he caught a hint of red at the tops of his ears. In another time and another place, he’d have investigated further, teased him a bit, maybe. Today he didn’t. 

The wet glimmer he’d seen in Henry’s eyes was replaced with something infinitely sad, and definitely fond. 

“Walt,” Henry whispered, and paused, nervously licking his lips. “No, _never_. Of course, that is not true,” he said and now there was a heat in his words that had been absent before. Walt had missed that warmth, it’s absence leaving him bereft. “It could never be true.”

“Alright,” Walt accepted. If Henry could take this as Gospel truth for _his_ sake, then he’d have to take it as his own, too, in time. “Then it can’t be true for you either.”

Henry said nothing, gazing back with this puzzlement and wonder that he didn’t think he deserved but wouldn’t refuse. Walt half-wanted to kiss it from his mouth. He didn’t get to see _that_ look often, either. 

Walt was caught off guard, and therefore unable to take advantage of the moment when Henry leaned forward and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Walt turned his face, just the smallest bit, and it became _more_. Walt’s heart thrilled at the taste of him, coffee and warmth. Interest surged through his body as he leaned into Henry, seamlessly falling into his orbit. The only thing he liked as much as a cold beer on a hot night was _this_. 

There was raw emotion in the way Henry’s hand found its way into the lapels of his jacket as he tugged him forward. Walt went willingly, his hand resting at Henry's hip, lost in the feel of his warm breath on his skin. Walt was too carried away by the moment to worry about onlookers. Everything beyond them ceased. 

Henry pulled their bodies flush for one amazing second and Walt breathed in the scent of him, the taste, as the kiss grew into something less chaste. Hunger kneaded its claws in his belly. 

Walt groaned, low and gravely, lust shooting through him at the feel of Henry’s hardened body pressed so close. It crossed his mind to pin Henry to the wall, slide a leg between his thighs, and re-explore his mouth with his tongue, deeper and more filthy. To draw hard-won noises from his lips with stinging nips and soft kisses. Henry must have seen it on his face, too. 

Because then it was over. 

“Walt,” Henry said, quiet but with all the fondness of a warm summer eve as he pushed away from him, their shoulders brushing as he walked past. Walt knew it for what it was and let him go. This would be the first and last time Henry Standing Bear would kiss him in public, beyond the closed doors of bedrooms and cabins. His body a mixture of protective instincts and the _other_ kind of instincts, Walt allowed himself a moment to breathe in the cold, brisk winter air. He wrestled down the embers of desire sparking in his belly, a bemused smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Even in darkness there existed light. 

Henry wasn’t saying _‘no.’_ He was listening damn hard for even a whisper of that. A flinch, a twitch, anything that might reveal the lay of the land as it were. It hadn’t come. 

Neither had he, Walt mused, but they weren't randy schoolboys to rub one out in an ally or shadowed corner somewhere. Never mind in broad day where anyone might happen across. This was just a pause in the long road stretched out before them, and that was okay. 

Henry hadn’t shut the door on his face, which might well be the closest thing to an invitation he was going to get for the time being. Walt decided he was okay with that for now. Henry was worth the waiting. He always had been.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Notes: Yes, I am doing another one of these and apologize for my long-winded rambling ahead of time. So, this chapter. While in the midst of writing I realized something. Or gained a better understanding, at least, for why I tried to incorporate Walt’s late wife into this story. I could have focused solely on the grief of a love lost, but I didn’t. I tried to make Martha more real, more present -- if only in the backdrop -- with dreams, memories, and visions. A cue for this influence is the real or sense-memory of _"lavender and zinnias"_. 
> 
> I chose to tag this story as _Walt/Martha/Henry_ and I wanted to try and make that believable. Martha’s death [in this narrative] is what drove a wedge between Walt and the whole world. Including Henry. I wanted to have Martha, in some shape or form, be the catalyst _\-- the bridge --_ which pushed Walt back into Henry’s sphere. To be the one to help him see that living, that loving, was never the wrong choice. _(Chapter 22, Winter)_
> 
>  _“Give Henry my love,”_ she said in the dream-vision, because just like Walt, Martha loved Henry too. _(Chapter 23, Winter)_ She wouldn’t want Walt to spend the rest of his life grieving or being alone when he doesn’t have to be because he still has Henry Standing Bear, _“best friend, and the first greatest love of his life.” (Chapter 13, Winter)_
> 
> I felt the need to clarify this here in notes because as a relatively new writer I don’t think I was able to fully capture my intent within the story itself. 
> 
> Also, there are two literary references hidden among Walt’s internal thoughts in this chapter. Anyone catch them? 
> 
> Well, the first when properly quoted is _“The course of true love never did run smooth,”_ by Shakespeare in _“A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”_ And the second is an oblique reference to another Shakespearian work, _“The Merchant of Venice,”_ from which the modern vernacular for “extracting your pound of flesh” was in-part derived. 
> 
> PS: Thanks, again _Piccola_Poe_ for tirelessly reading all the bits and bob I keep sending your way as I get ready to post my (mostly) finished work.
> 
> PSS: The two symbols in Walt's dream, the hand print and the arrows within a circle were found here. 
> 
> _"Native Indian Symbol."_
> 
> http s: // www.warpaths2peacepipes.com/native-american-symbols/protection-symbol. htm


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “It-’
> 
> “Don’t,” Walt cut in, his face harsh and unbending. He knew the words his friend planned to speak and he didn’t want to hear it today. “I hate it when you say that.”
> 
> “Fine, _for you_ , for today, I will not,” Henry said capitulating with grace and ease that left Walt opened-mouthed and wholly off guard. 
> 
> Walt was suddenly gripped by two conflicting desires regarding Henry. To kiss him until he lost some of that serenity he wore like a second skin or to shake him until he reacted. Both want's overlapping at the same, and absolute worst, time. Two rivers crossing, leading out to the same sea of Desire. 
> 
> It was frustrating and a very common reaction to Henry Standing Bear being _Henry Standing Bear_.

_Motel 6, Wyoming:_

  
  
  


Martha said loving Henry was easy and she was right. Walt fell in deep all over again watching Henry pull himself together again before his eyes. Lurching back from the ledge, stitch by stitch, all on his own. Maybe they should have had this talk in the beginning. _Maybe_ that was him taking too much credit. Still, Walt looked on, a strange kind of pride swelling up. There resided in Henry a matchless strength that was more than physical and Walt marveled. 

Sometimes that which was unseen was made _seen_ in the small still moments. Walt was privileged to be part of this one. It was a stern reminder, too. Henry was more than the sum of his parts. To see him in any other way would be to do him a disservice. That Walt would never do. Still, it was a reminder of what he’d fallen for. In what seemed eons ago. The scrappy dark-eyed kid from _the Rez_ who never backed down. Who never let Walt do it, either.

He could see it now, their history written in the proud line of Henry’s shoulders. Strong enough to carry the grief for them both when Walt lost himself, wandering in an abyss of mourning, after Martha. 

The grace with which he walked, no hesitation showing through. After he’d shaken the awkwardness of puberty Henry had gone from gangly to deadly. Bullies never picked on them more than once. 

And when the light hit just right? He was ringed in a halo of brightness by the morning sun and nothing had ever been more apropos. He’d always been a welcome sight in one way or the other to Walt. But right now? Walt loved the steel in his eye and the softness of his smile when their gazes touched, briefly, in passing. He felt it, too. Right down to the flutter of his spirit in its cage of flesh. 

He knew it then, standing there in the still quiet moment between one breath and the next that he would never feel for another as much as he felt for this man, right here, right _now_. 

“Let us finish this,” Henry said, his hand resting at his elbow. 

“Okay.”

Different words almost tripped off his tongue but he swallowed them back down. This wasn’t the time or the place. Henry knew by now what he meant to Walt. He was sure. Henry was the kind of man who could appreciate words saved for the proper time and hour of their speaking.

The room they had left Omar and _Mr. Stares a Lot_ in was oddly quiet. Walt had expected for their guest to be screaming his head off again but he wasn’t. He didn’t much like surprises. 

Henry preceded him into the room and he followed at his heels. Walt took in the whole of the room in seconds. Omar knelt over a wastebasket. He looked a little green around the gills. Their _guest_ was where they had left him, staring mulishly at his pinned hand.

“Omar?” Walt barked out.

“Nothing,” Omar said, quick and sharp. “I’m fine, bad coffee or something.”

He grunted and shot Walt a look that said _‘Don’t ask.’_

Walt kept his questions to himself. If Omar thought he needed to know he trusted the man to speak up.

“What’s his name?” Walt finally asked, jerking his thumb at the man who was nailed to the table. “I meant to ask, but, well,” he shrugged and trailed off. The moniker he’d stuck to the man was getting old. 

“This is George Perkins, my third kidnapper, and would-be blackmailer as you cleverly figured out all on your own. He attended _Laramie County College_ , has a mother named Deborah, and little sister, Dawn.”

Walt blinked, taking in the information. He’d asked for a name and gotten a life story instead. 

It made sense though. 

Henry had done his homework before tangling with Perkins again. Henry was many things but slow to learn from his mistakes had never been one of them.

Henry shrugged his shoulder, dismissing Walt and Omar’s matching looks of shock with an absent wave of his hand. 

“Facebook can be very useful, in a pinch.”

Omar chuckled, slapping Henry on the back. 

“Why haven’t you deputized this man, huh, Walt?” he asked, turning a half-serious look in Walt’s direction. 

“Henry did just stab a man. That is kind of illegal, Omar,” Walt retorted, turning a flinty eye back toward Perkins. 

Walt met Henry’s eyes dead on over Omar’s head. A private amusement ghosting across the corner of his mouth. 

“Just a bit,” Walt added.

Henry didn’t smile but light flickered behind his eyes and his head dipped minutely. Walt had been heard. Walt had been _understood_ , too. Of the two the latter had always mannered more between them. Being understood so well that words didn’t always clutter the rooms or bedsheets, they shared.

Omar snorted, shaking his head. 

The private exchange passed him unnoticed. Walt didn’t blame him. He and Henry had perfected covert flirting down to an art by now. 

A _certain look_ , a _particular_ head-tilt, a _special_ smile, innocuous cues that could be overlooked in a crowded barroom or street side. He knew them all. He’d used them all, once upon a time. 

“Semantics,” Omar harrumphed. 

“So, Perkins, what are we going to do with you?” Omar asked, circling around to stand behind the man, his hands resting heavily on his shoulders. “Are you ready to hand over all the shit you were trying to hold over Henry? Or do you need to sit here, and think it over some more?”

“You’re all fucking crazy, take it, it’s all in the bag.” 

“Son, you haven’t got a leg to stand on,” Walt broke in. “You kidnapped a man, by all rights I ought to charge you with accessory to kidnapping and sexual assault.”

Perkin sniffed. “Yeah? Well, I don’t think you will. You didn’t charge Trig and Mitch with kidnapping and sexual assault. I know, I checked.”

“Don’t push it,” Walt cautioned. “I can change that awful quick.”

“Give me what I have asked for Perkins and you are free to go,” Henry cut in, shoving Walt back a few steps in the process. “Scott free.”

Walt stepped around Henry, his hands braced on the table so he was leaning close to Perkins. 

“You’re also going to leave my town. If I ever see you again? I'm going to do one of two things. One, I’ll screw your life up in such a way that there’s no use living it. Or, two, my preference, I’m going to kill you,” Walt promised. 

As he spoke he unholstered his gun and took a bullet out of the chamber, setting it down on the table. 

“With this bullet.”

Perkins turned pale as winter. It didn’t look good on him. 

“Jesus, what is with you all? I didn’t even fuck him, alright? Christ, calm the fuck down, man,” Perkin snapped. 

“Trig and Mitch were a lot worse than anything I might have done,” he defended. 

“Enough!” Henry snarled, his hand cutting through the air in the gesture for silence. 

Walt obeyed, falling back. 

He’d said his piece though, and he felt better for it; watching sweat pool on Perkins' forehead, the noxious body odor rolling off him in waves. Perkins _believed_ him and that was all that mattered. 

Henry needed this to be in his past. 

Walt planned to make certain it stayed that way. 

“You said there might be stuff on sites, I want him to take that shit down too,” Walt growled, pacing the floor. 

Perkins nodded his head going like a bobblehead in his rush to get out of here. 

Walt rummaged through the navy duffel back on the bed. He tossed the memory stick, the black _Panasonic_ camcorder, and a stack of photos he didn’t dare look at too closely. He saw skin, and bodies, and familiar blue sheets in the backdrop, before he shoved them aside facedown on the motel bed. 

Deep in the bag, he found a thin, compact laptop. 

“Can you please take this thing out now, I need my hand to type,” Perkins muttered to Henry who stared back. 

Henry let the laptop drop harder than necessary in front of Perkins who frowned at the rough treatment of his possession. “You are right-handed if I remember correctly, I think you can manage.”

Perkins didn’t contradict him and Walt focused very hard on not thinking about why Henry knew such details or how he’d come to learn them. Suspicion was a whole different ball game to knowing. There were some things that Walt didn’t want to know. The devil was in the details. But in this case, they’d just bring out the devil in him. 

This was _Henry’s_ show. Walt figured that much out quick enough. He was just moral support with a shiny badge and gun. 

Henry remained behind Perkins, overseeing his work. Omar propped himself against the bed and Walt stood, crammed into a small section of the room, watchfully hovering around them all. 

Henry was still impassive in his general manner but he was different, too, Walt observed. He glared at Perkins but when he glanced at Walt that hard edge smoothed out into something lesser. 

Tension eked out of Henry as Perkins deleted file after file on his laptop. When that was done Perkins pulled up a _Dark Web_ account using the _Motel 6_ wifi server.

“All of it,” Henry warned. 

His tone was deceptively soft only belied by the hard glint in his eye. Henry wasn’t playing around, he’d made that point with the sharp end of his hunting knife and Walt didn’t think Perkins was going to forget that. Not any time some.

Perkins swallowed tightly, nodded, and slowly pecked at the laptop keyboard one-handed. Satisfied with his competence to this point Henry leaned over Perkins's shoulders and pulled the hunting knife from his hand. He then wordlessly tossed the bleeding man one of the t-shirts from his bag to wrap his hand. 

Henry had known what he was doing when he’d stabbed Perkins and it showed. Blood didn’t spurt all over the hotel's nice beige carpet when the knife was removed. The bandage would do its job until he could see himself to a hospital. 

Walt got a look at Perkins's account name, _Minotaur06_ , and chortled. 

Perkins reddened, a flush creeping up the back of his beck. “What? Minotaur, half-horse or something, right? Means it’s got a really big-”

“The minotaur is a creature from Greek mythology, half man and half bull. It is not a horse, kid,” Walt muttered, “what do they teach you in schools these days?”

“They do not teach classical literature Walter, they never have,” Henry cut in, amusement lighting-up his expression considerably. 

The laptop dinged when Perkins logged into his account and began removing things listed below the “negotiable” column. Walt skimmed the comments other users had left. Perkins had a whole lot of stuff, and the tab in the corner said he’d raked in five hundred dollars with his last few sales.

Perkins typed out, _‘Item no longer for sale’_ under at least three video files and one unopened photo file. Walt looked on, his stomach flopping, as three dots appeared below these items. An interested buyer was trying to negotiate with _Minotaur06._

_‘Authenticity verified by local news. I will pay more than the previous asking price,’_ the newcomer, _RatchetMan55_ , typed. 

_‘No can do, RatchetMan55, item no longer for sale,’_ Perkins typed in response, his leg bouncing under the table. 

_‘1,000 -- you won’t get a better offer,’ RatchetMan55_ pressed. 

_‘No, sorry’_ Perkins insisted. 

“Damn, take a hint,” he muttered aloud. 

_‘Can you pass on the subject's name? Offering $100,’_ _RatchetMan55_ insisted, inserting an emoticon that Walt thought looked disturbingly phallic in nature. 

“Shut this down, now,” Walt snapped.

“Yeah, yeah,” Perkins murmured, typing away at the board but not before _RatchetMan55_ left one last message. 

_‘I know where you are, Minotaur06. Absaroka, Wyoming zip code 82001, Motel 6 Room 20.’_

Perkins sucked in a breath, eyes widening in alarm. He stopped typing, brought up his personal account options, and selected the button which read _delete account_ . Walt looked at the now blank screen but for the words _account deleted_ at the top of the webpage. 

“I’m going to have to trash this now, dammit!” Perkins cursed, glaring at the room at large.

While he was mad about his device Walt was disturbed that in such a short amount of time a strange, and likely deranged individual, had honed in on the photos and files pertaining to Henry and his abduction. It was more than a little alarming. 

“Okay, are we done now?” Perkins demanded, clutching his bandaged hand to his chest, muttering under his breath, “I have to see a doctor _and_ buy a new laptop.”

Walt said nothing. 

It wasn't his choice to make.

“We are done,” Henry replied. 

“Just say you were learning to gut a pig, they get that all the time at _Good Samaritan_ ,” Omar piped up, grinning all the while. “Lots of hunters, and hunter wannabes, out this way, they’ll go for that easy peasy.”

Perkins shuffled out the door the navy duffel bag hefted over his shoulder. Walt, Omar, and Henry remained in place for a few minutes, the gravity of what they had accomplished finally beginning to set in. 

It was done. The whole fucking mess with _Penrose_ was over now. Walt didn’t think he was happy exactly. He hadn’t got to hit the asshole like he wanted too but there was relief in knowing that it was over. 

Three minutes after Perkins had left they heard two shots in quick succession. _Bam, bam,_ and then a long silence. The kind that came after something big happened, were people just looked on in shock struggling to compute what their eyes had witnessed. When that was over, the noise started up again. 

People that were closer to where the shots had been fired started screaming. In the distance, someone distinctly male shouted, _“Call the sheriff!”_

He’d hoped it had been something mundane like a car backing-up, but knew his guns too well to put too much stock in that hope. Walt sighed, nodded to Omar and Henry, and strode out to see what had happened. 

He wasn’t expecting to see Perkins lying in the parking lot, a perfect hole burned through his forehead by a _Smith & Wesson 9 mm _. He wasn’t very sad about it, either. He tried to be a good man -- not a saint. Indifference for the man who had so carelessly harmed his best friend was acceptable in his book. 

That hole had been made by a handgun, the kind generally advised for women, which brought him to the second body. He didn’t feel much when he saw Perkins but _her_. Well, that was different. She was an unknown quantity, innocent until proven guilty. 

He felt his stomach tighten in regret. The brunette woman was far too young to be lying dead on the asphalt of a _Motel 6_ parking lot from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The case was pretty clear cut. Judging from the angle of the shot and the lack of an exit wound she had done it herself. The only mystery was why she’d taken Perkins' life before ending her own.

Walt sighed, maybe it wasn’t so far out considering Perkins' record. Was she another victim? Someone else who’d escaped the clutches of Smithson, Holden, and Perkins? He’d lay good odds she had been another survivor. 

As he looked down at her, sorrow winding its way through his heart, he realized this could have been Henry. A few alternative choices and it could’ve been a different pair of bodies he uncovered. 

_Henry_ , that he was kneeling over. Walt shook himself, it wasn’t though, it was this poor girl and he would have to notify her family providing she had any. _Homicide-Suicide_. That was going to be bitterly tough news to break to any parent. Especially since he didn’t yet know the full story. 

Walt knelt down beside her and gently rifled through the salmon-colored purse hung over her shoulder until he found a wallet of the same matching color. 

Jeannie Collins, age 28, _Durant_ residence. 

He looked up and Amanda Bell was standing a respectful distance away. She wore a look of horror on her face. He’d forgotten what it was like to be a kid seeing their first dead body but he sympathized all the same. It couldn’t have been easy. They looked close to the same age. 

“Is she, is she…” she tried to say, but the words weren’t working.

Walt spared her the attempt.

“Yeah, she’s gone. Call an ambulance, kid.”

Walt stayed with the body until the ambulance arrived. Muted sorrow weighed at his heart for what the young woman had done. She hadn’t thought there was any other way out. Had she been afraid to be labeled another statistic? Or of the public humiliation? Walt sighed, hating that this was the world they inhabited. The guilty went free because their unlucky victims were silenced by merciless newshounds and the apathy of their fellow man. 

Walt knelt beside her, his eyes sweeping over the dead woman's strong chin, the unseeing hazel eyes, and hoped she had found some peace. He wanted to close her eyes, it would be easier to believe she went easily into that forever darkness if she looked like she was sleeping. The sirens were getting closer. High pitched wailing announcing to pedestrians and oncoming traffic, _‘emergency!’_ get out of the way as it peeled through the streets.

Walt stood up when it arrived and explained the situation to the stoic faced Medics who were as used to the presence of death as the living. He didn’t envy them that familiarity, though he was no stranger to the mechanics of death. 

Jeannie Collins was announced dead on the scene at 10:30 AM on a Sunday afternoon. An autopsy would be done as a formality. This was as clear cut as it ever got. Jeannie Collins killed her abuser and then she turned the gun on herself taking her own life. She’d made the choice to end her own life. Because of that, her full story might never be known. Walt could do many things, but getting answers from the dead was beyond his skills. 

Walt stood in the parking lot for a long while. It could have been minutes or hours, he didn’t know. But he remained until he couldn't see the ambulance and the crowds had dispersed. People drifted back into their own lives. But not Walt. He stayed, a silent sentry, knowing it could have easily been a different body hauled off to the morgue today. 

There was some knowledge he didn’t know what to do with.

“It is a five-hour drive to Durant,” Henry said, taking up the empty space at his side. Henry had managed to read the ID card he was fiddling with as he approached.

Walt jumped shaken from his aimless staring. He pulled in a deep breath, shaking his head, his hand edging away from his gun. He hadn’t even heard the other man approach. No real surprise there if Henry wasn’t trying to be heard. Henry could be quiet that way, silent as a shadow flickering over the pavement. 

Walt blew out a noisy breath. He’d never say but he was envious of his friend’s keen sight, these days Walt needed to be a lot closer to read things.

“Dammit, Henry.”

“Sorry,” Henry said, but he didn’t sound it. He sounded amused to have got one up on him without even trying. Best friend and love of his life or not Henry could still be an ass. 

Walt grunted. 

“No, you’re not.”

“Hmm,” Henry said, which was neither confirmation or denial on the subject. However, the smirk on the man’s face said Walt had called it right.

Walt went back to watching the skyline. Glad for the company but unwilling to speak yet. He was putting it off, he knew. There was a time when he wouldn’t have done this, take a moment to just breathe. But deaths hit him harder these days. Since Martha. 

Henry knew that, too. He also knew his friend wouldn't say anything about it. That wasn’t their way. But it explained why Henry was here. Notifications were the worst part of the job. It was never easy having to look a person in the face and tell them that someone they loved was dead. That they were never coming home. 

It always hit Walt like a sucker punch he just didn’t let it show on his face. These moments weren’t about him. They were about the victims and their families. But he felt it. A dull ache in his chest that drove him to find the killers. 

It was both the worst and one of the most _important_ parts of being the sheriff. 

“I thought you and Omar would’ve left by now,” Walt finally said. “There’s no need for you to hang around.”

Henry shrugged, casual and careless as he leaned back against the truck, their elbows brushing companionably. “I guess you were wrong.”

Walt snorted, crude and uncommonly bitter.

“There’s been a lot of that, too much, really,” he muttered. 

Henry’s lazy sprawl at his side tightened, morphing into something less casually dispassionate. 

“If this is about what happened to me? You need to let that go, Walter. Shit happens,” Henry calmly stated, as if they were talking about state politics or the weather. 

Not kidnapping and sexual assault. 

“It-"

“Don’t,” Walt cut in, his face harsh and unbending. He knew the words his friend planned to speak and he didn’t want to hear it today. “I hate it when you say that.”

“Fine, _for you_ , for today, I will not,” Henry said capitulating with grace and ease that left Walt opened-mouthed and wholly off guard. 

Walt was suddenly gripped by two conflicting desires regarding Henry. To kiss him until he lost some of that serenity he wore like a second skin or to shake him until he _reacted_. Both want's overlapping at the same, and absolute worst, time. Two rivers crossing, leading out to the same sea of Desire. 

It was frustrating and a very common reaction to Henry Standing Bear being _Henry Standing Bear_. 

He didn’t question it, letting it be. What was there to say? Nothing at all. Walt squinted against the sun, thoughts of Jeannie Collins turning to thoughts of George Perkins. He’d seen the man at the _Red Pony_ the other night he was almost certain of it. He’d spent a half-hour socializing at the bar. He’d seen Henry only in passing. He had chalked it up to it being a busy night. 

He wanted to be angry with Henry for not confiding in him sooner. But it was half-hearted at best. Walt knew why Henry hadn't, or, at least, he thought he did. 

Their talk today had shed light on an issue he hadn’t even considered. Right or wrong wasn’t for Walt to decide, Henry had felt _ashamed_. 

He'd perceived it as a failure on his part that it happened and he hadn’t wanted Walt poking at an open wound. 

Walt could understand that. It didn’t mean he had to like it. 

“What did he do, Henry,” Walt finally asked, as they leaned against his truck. Staring into the sun with squinted eyes. 

“I think I know but…” Walt trailed off into silence. He didn’t dare look at Henry just yet, what he might think if it showed on his face. 

It wasn’t morbid curiosity driving Walt. It wasn’t even lawman instincts. It was for his own sanity. So he would not have to imagine it as more or less than it was. 

“Then why do you ask? If you already know?” Henry asked him, serene as a pastor before his flock.

His face gave nothing away, not that Walt expected it to when he snuck a glance at the other man. But he looked, just in case, and because the view was good. 

The sun made Henry’s tanned skin look almost dusky red in strong lighting. It was striking. _He_ was striking. For all the shit he gave Henry about it, the bit of gray hair brushed back behind his ears didn't make him any less so.

Henry caught him at it, amusement curling his lips. 

His friend sighed and Walt knew he had decided to give in. 

“It was enough that I have no desire to get on my knees any time soon,” Henry admitted, casting a regretful look at Walt. 

Henry shrugged, forced carelessness that didn’t quite cover his unease. 

“Sorry.”

Walt said nothing, nodding to himself, having more or less guessed that was the answer he might get if he got one at all. 

“Have I shocked you into silence?” Henry murmured. 

Walt startled, again, shooting him a curious look. “What? No, of course not. Was just off with the fairies you know.” 

Henry chuckled.

_“Thinking,”_ Walt clarified. 

Henry laughed quietly and neither said anything for a long spell. No one walking past would have noticed anything stranger than two old friends staring off into the sunset like a proper Cowboy and Indian might. 

Their shoulders brushed, and at the bottom of their hands, their pinkies overlapped now and again. It was a fleeting, intimate, touch, the whisper of skin to skin contact in public with no one apart from them any wiser for it. 

Just as thrilling now as it had ever been. Stealing moments.

“I was thinking…” Walt reiterated, his voice a low rumble. “We walk the same road Henry. Sometimes we’re touching, kissing, and holding with our bodies joining. Sometimes not, and that’s okay, too.” 

Walt deliberately detangled his pinky, making his point. “It’s okay. Because we still walk this road _together_.”

Walt felt the familiar burn of Henry assessing him and let himself be looked at. Let his face show whatever Henry might be needing to see. In this, he had no secrets. 

When he finally spoke Henry’s voice was warm. “If I did not know you better I would say that was almost romantic, Walter Longmire.”

Walt didn’t need to be looking to know the expression on his face, the way he was holding himself at his side. He just knew it. 

“Good thing you know me, then, isn’t it? I’m being honest,” Walt chuckled. 

“This? Us? It’s good when I have you in my bed and it’s good when I don’t. Although,” Walt drawled, looking Henry up and down. 

“I do prefer….”

“I advise you to stop while ahead, Walter.”

Without batting an eye Henry reached back, interlocking the tips of their fingers. It was high-school all over, them against the world, with their own little shorthand for speaking. 

Walt enjoyed being known so well for the rare commodity that it was. It lightened the weight he carried on his shoulders. But, as with all things, eventually, their stolen moment petered out, the clock ticking past the allotted time. 

Walt still had a duty to carry out. Henry would be fine, he knew that now. Maybe it wouldn’t happen all at once but it would happen. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it was built nonetheless. Knowing that? It made leaving easier.

“Well,” Walt said, stuffing the ID in the pocket, and nodded to Henry who nodded back. 

“I will see you when you get back,” Henry said. 

It wasn’t a question and Walt didn’t bother to pretend it had been. It was an invitation, a return to open-door policies that made him feel _soft_ in ways he hadn’t for a while.

“It might be late,” Walt warned.

“I will leave on a light,” Henry said, talking around him as if it had been the hour that Walt was concerned about.

It wasn’t and they both knew that. It was reawakening newly buried ghosts that left Walt apprehensive. But Henry knew that, didn’t he? Walt decided to trust Henry to know his own mind and followed his lead. 

“Okay,” Walt said in answer, “see you when I get back.” 

Walt climbed into his truck and took that long, long drive to _Durant_ . It wasn’t as fun as kicking in door's but it was _necessary_ . It was his job and for as long as he wore this badge he planned to do it right. And when he got back, well, the night wasn’t young but it also sure wasn’t over. There’d be a light on the _Red Pony_ and a cold beer waiting when he returned to _Absaroka_. 

Tracking down and notifying Jeannie Collins’ parents took longer than expected and while he was down in _Laramie_ he had that drink with _Dean Tyler_ ; known skirt-chaser, philanderer, and _very_ bisexual man. That last one had come as quite the shock. When he got back to the _Red Pony_ on a Tuesday night he silently handed over fifty dollars. 

“Don’t, just, don’t,” Walt warned, pointing his finger accusingly. Henry undeterred by his mulish scowl, threw his head back and laughed so hard people were staring.

“I did tell you,” Henry chided, his face lit up with a look of pure contentment. It wasn’t fair, Walt decided. He couldn't stay mad with Henry looking like that.

Walt's face burned hotly but by then he too was grinning ear to ear. Henry had been right, in the end. _Dean Tyler_ had a thing for older men with silver in their hair. Just like Henry called it, two years back.

Staring down at his boots, his leg bouncing against the barroom floor Walt just knew, wherever Martha was, she too was having herself a good laugh at his expense. 

Walt hung around until after closing hours. He watched the customers file out, he chatted with whoever stopped at his table but mostly he just enjoyed the dim lighting and the quietness of a Tuesday night at the _Red Pony_. Henry kept his shot glass topped up between his usual going on’s, even offered him the use of his office. Walt declined. Nice as Henry’s office was he liked where he was tonight, seated at his favorite table by the fire, his eyes lazily tracking Henry as he drank. 

Henry got busy wiping down tables and stacking chairs when the last customer trotted out. Walt considered helping but he’d had a few more than he should have. He’d only get in the way.

Besides Henry didn’t seem to mind, so he stayed where he was quietly watching him until the work was done. With the work done for the night, Henry pulled out a chair across from him and got busy catching up. Four hours and a lot of drinks later Henry squeezed the full story out of Walt as they sprawled across the empty bar floor drunk enough that the world became soft and hazy and nothing hurt. 

Walt explained in fits and starts, his tongue loosened by alcohol and the absolute privacy provided by Henry’s closed establishment. 

“Well, there was this bar called the _Tipsy Cow_ , this handsy red-head called _Bunny_ , and a back alley…” Walt began, privately admitting, maybe it was a little funny after all. 

Henry listened raptly with his hands folded behind his head and his blue t-shirt riding up at the hip to show a sliver of dark skin. Walt dragged his eyes back up his face, wetting suddenly parched lips. 

“Where was I?” Walt asked, suddenly lost.

“Tyler took advantage of your willingness to return a debt.”

“Well, uh,” Walt frowned, “ _took advantage_ is a little harsh, don’t you think?”

Henry canted his head to the side, shooting him a distinctly unimpressed look. “No, I do not,” he said, and if Walt didn’t know better he’d think that was jealousy showing through.

Walt suppressed his amusement and picked up where he’d left off warmth suffusing him like the balmy summer heat of August. 

Henry hummed his responses here and there to show Walt he was listening. Somewhere between when storytelling hour began and now Henry had fetched himself an apple from the kitchen. 

“...and then he laid a wet one on my mouth,” Walt admitted, a smug grin plastered to his face. “I guess I still got it.”

Henry snorted. “So, to save you from the handsy red-headed Bunny, Dean Tyler dragged you out back and kissed you _himself_?” he asked, rolling his eyes.

“He has a thing for cowboys,” Walt laughed, “and older men.”

Henry hummed, but this time it was more disgruntled than amused. Next thing Walt knew the apple was rolling across the floor, entirely forgotten and Henry was sitting astride his hips, leaning over him. Henry's arms were braced on either side of his head giving him a moment to enjoy the firm muscles in his biceps and the hard press of his body draped across his own. The metal of Henry’s silver eagle belt buckle was cold against his belly. He didn’t mind.

Walt didn’t know when the buttons on the bottom half of his plaid shirt had been undone and he didn’t care. He was drunk and happy and Henry was pressed close in a way he hadn’t been for a long while. He had hand's on his skin and an enjoyable pressure keeping him pinned on his back.

Walt reached for Henry’s trim waist, not pulling, just holding on. He might have rucked up Henry’s t-shirt at the hem to feel skin against his palm but Henry wasn’t voicing complaints so he didn’t stop his hand from wandering.

“I too have a thing for sheriffs and your hat,” Henry whispered into his ear, his lips brushing against his jaw. 

“So, not just _any_ sheriff and his hat will do?” Walt laughed.

Henry shook his head. Walt felt it more than saw it, the brush of black hair against his face, and the smile pressed into his neck. 

“No, just you.”

“Good,” Walt murmured, his hand tracing along the side of Henry's face. “That’s good,” he repeated, licking his lips nervously. “Henry?”

“Yes, Walt?” Henry asked, nipping at his ear, the sting of teeth a pleasant burn but unwelcome distraction as his thoughts descended into a haze of _need_ and _want_. 

“I went to see Ada Black Kettle,” Walt blurted, realizing too late that he’d said things all backward. 

Walt tried again, taking a deep breath before speaking. 

“I wanted to say it right.”

Henry shot him a quizzical look, his brow arched in silent question. 

Walt groaned, gently tugged on Henry, his hand tangled in dark hair as he kissed him. Henry leaned down, placing his weight on his forearms as he licked into Walt's mouth deep and filthy. Eager with _wanting_ of his own. There was no mistaking Henry’s desire. Walt felt the evidence pressed against his hip bones through denim.

Walt pulled back, gulping in air. He needed to speak now. Before things got out of control and he forgot how to speak at all. 

“Néméhotatséme,” Walt muttered, his voice husky with emotion. He had practiced it many times. The last thing he wanted to do was botch his lover's native language. 

Henry had almost stopped breathing. His face hidden in Walt’s shoulder. He felt, more than saw, the deep breaths he was taking, moved by Walt’s words. 

Walt couldn’t _see_ Henry like this. It bothered him. He wanted to _know_ as much as he wanted to _be known_ in this private moment. He repeated the words. He felt compelled to do so. Driven even by some force larger than himself to speak them aloud. To make them _heard_. 

“Néméhotatséme,” he murmured. The words fell off his tongue, foreign, but full of so much meaning his heart was full to bursting. 

Walt, calling on a strength slowed by age but still present, rolled them over. He _needed_ to see Henry's face. 

_"Néméhotatséme,”_ Walt breathed, a reverent whisper. Pressing the words into Henry's skin, breathing in his unique, familiar scent as the man lay underneath him. 

Henry stared up at him, very still and unblinking. 

Walt had a moment to doubt. They were both a little drunk. Maybe he hadn’t said them aloud? Maybe Henry hadn’t heard him? No. He had said it and Henry had heard. Walt had to trust in that. 

He waited, his heart pounding so loud it was all he could hear.

“Did I say it wrong?” Walt asked, his cheeks reddening. “I-”

Henry cut him off with a slow deep kiss and Walt had never been happier to be shut up with lips pressing against his own. 

“I love you, too, Walter,” Henry said, choosing to speak in _Walt’s_ tongue. Henry’s words were steeped with meaning and his dark eyes shone very brightly in the dim fluorescent lights. 

Walt couldn't look away, almost transfixed, trying to hold onto this moment. Etch it into his mind. Preserve that look on Henry’s face and the way his eyes glittered with all the unspoken that lay between them.

“Whatever might change in this world, trust that _this_ , at least, will not,” Henry promised, his tight hold at Walt’s back, keeping them locked together, was nothing less than proprietary. 

A claimant levied with words spoken into his skin. Henry had breathed them into his very bones weaving themselves into the fabric of his heart. 

_Oh_ , Walt thought, and speaking in the language he and Henry conversed in most fluently he leaned down until his stubble scraped against Henry’s cheek. His lips ghosting over those of his friends as he waited.

_He could be a patient man, for the right reasons._

It was his last coherent thought. 

Henry surged up onto his elbows and his lips pressed into Walt, closing the distance between them. Walt followed his lead settling into the dance of lips and tongue, tasting whiskey and apple on his own tongue. Their mouths and bodies rolled together in a wave of passion. It was soft, sweet, and enough to set Walt blood on fire anew. 

When they parted after what could have been moments, or hours, they were both breathing hard, trembling against one another, lost together in a soft haze of _want_ and _need_ and _love_. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: To all things there must be an end. This is it for _“Winter”_ dear readers! I thank you all, the commenters, the kudo’ers, the silent lurkers. It has proven to be quite the adventure writing this run-away Longmire fanfiction and hearing back from you all. 
> 
> Sincerest thanks for all the support along this _long_ , long, winding road Piccola_Poe.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what this is yet, or what it will be, just something I had to put out there. As ever, comments and/or KUDOS are treasured.


End file.
